Huckleberry Finn essays

Huckleberry Finn essays In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim and Huck escape down the Mississippi river in search of freedom and adventure, and along the way encounter many different kinds of people, families, and societies. They visit different towns and villages along the Mississippi, and find out that the characters of the people they meet are often violent, dishonest, or easily cheated out of their money. The people are sometimes welcoming, but also very scared, vulnerable and isolated in their frontier life. Mark Twain presents an authentic depiction of the 19th century frontier, and demonstrates that although the people of the frontier often put up a false image of themselves in order to survive, human nature remains the same no matter where it is lived out. The first people that Huck encounters on his way down the Mississippi are a family called the Grangerfords. The Grangerfords are presented as being bit more refined and civilized than any people earlier in the novel. Twain uses Hucks narrative for satires against the shallowness of American decorum, art, poetry, and well-born churchgoers. But, despite the airs of sophistication and culture that they put on, the Grangerfords are nonetheless gracious and generous to Huck and offer him a home with them as long as he would like. Unfortunately, Huck is unable to take the family up on their offer for long, because he soon becomes aware of the conflicts surrounding him. He discovers that the Grangerfords are involved in a long time feud with a neighboring family called the Shepardsons, and it is not long before blood is shed and Hucks friend Buck Grangerford is shot dead. At this shocking realization of the cruelty and violence of the frontier, Huck flees the from the Grangerfords, but a lso from what he is unable to describe, a vision of himself participating in senseless cruelty and destruction. Soon after they fleeing from the Grangerfor...