“PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.” This quote is from Mark Twain at the beginning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and it shows Mark Twain’s humor, while also setting the tone for the book. This book was published in the 1880’s, which was around twenty years after the civil war, but it showed there were still signs of discrimination against the African Americans. The main themes of this story are racism and slavery, superstitions, and the issue of conforming to society to please others.
The theme of the story largely revolves around the ideas of racism and slavery and is conveyed through Huck’s relationship with Jim, who is a runaway slave. Huckleberry Finn was helping Jim run away because he found him on an island and believed Jim was a person just like everyone else, he was equal. Jim ran away from his owner, Miss Watson, because she was contemplating selling him for 800 dollars down the Mississippi River. Jim ran away to get money to buy his family out of slavery. Other people treated Jim as property and tried to turn him in for a reward. At the end of the story it turns out Jim had been freed because Miss Watson had died and gave him his freedom in her will. Tom Sawyer said “They hain’t no RIGHT to shut him up! SHOVE!—and don’t you lose a minute. Turn him loose! He ain’t no slave; he’s as free as any cretur that walks this earth!” (Twain, chapter 42)
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Racism and slavery were a very large part of the American culture in the 1800’s. Since it was part of the culture, not everyone that supported it was truly a bad person; it was just how they had been raised to t…
…ming and getting used to going to school.
The main themes of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were slavery and racism and the problems with conforming to society. Another theme that was important was superstitions. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written during the Realism movement of literature. Being a part of the Realism movement made the story have a more realistic ending and all of the characters end up happy. Mark Twain’s time period also affected the novel because it allowed for the controversial topic of slavery to be a main theme. In his time, Mark Twain was a radical thinker for believing slaves were not property, but were people and should be treated equally. In the words of Frances Wright “Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.” If you want to learn more about the themes, you should really read this book.
