The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Essay

The mid-19th century was a period of time in the United States wrought with strife, resentment, and disunity due to the issue of slavery. The issue quickly culminated into the American Civil War, a war that was fought over slavery. After the war concluded, the 13th amendment of the United States Constitution abolished slavery in the United States. However, despite the slaves being freed, the issue of the morality of human enslavement still remained embedded in the minds of thousands of Americans. In 1884, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, was published. The book tells the adventures of a boy, Huckleberry Finn, while he helps free a slave, Jim. Throughout the narrative, young Huck faces multiple dilemmas over the issue of slavery and racism; ultimately, he continues to help Jim escape though he is faced with constant opposition to that decision. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain draws on his past experiences towards the institution of slavery in order to depict his characters in a way that glorifies anti-slavery characters and vilifies pro-slavery characters in an attempt to denounce the institution of slavery.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known more commonly by his pen name Mark Twain, was born in 1835, during the antebellum period in the United States. In the period before the civil war, slavery was a legal and thriving institution. Clemens himself was “born to a family who owned slaves” (Arac 42). Therefore, the fact that Clemens came to support the emancipation of slaves, as well as the institution of black rights, is intriguing. Clemens’s change in views, leading to the composition of novels such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, can be greatly attributed to the inte…

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… Jim (Robinson 364).Works CitedArac, Jonathan. Huckleberry Finn as Idol and Target: The Functions of Criticism in Our Time.Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1997. Print.

Bloom, Harold. Mark Twain. Broomall: Chelsea House, 2000. Print

Chadwick-Joshua, Jocelyn. The Jim Dilemma: Reading Race in Huckleberry Finn. Jackson:University of Mississippi, 1998. Print.

Colwell, James L. “Huckleberries and Humans: On the Naming of Huckleberry Finn.”PMLA 86.1 (1971): 70-76. JSTOR. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.

Robinson, Forrest G. “The Characterization of Jim in Huckleberry Finn.” Nineteenth-CenturyLiterature 43.3 (1988): 361-91. JSTOR. Web. 19 Jan. 2014.

Telgen, Diane. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Novels for Students. Vol. 1. Detroit, MI:Gale, 1997. 2-21. Print.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 3rd ed. New York: Bantam, 2003. Print

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