Mark Twain & Huckleberry Finn

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the beginning of the novel, "the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary Pike County dialect... are used to wit..." (Twain 1). In this book, as they traveled down the Mississippi River, the values of Huck and Jim were contrasted against those of the people living in the southern United States. Huck (the narrator and one of the main characters) and Jim(another main character) were both trying to reach freedom.

Twain based this book on things that were happening during this time in his life. Huck was introduced without a father in his life. Twain's father had died when he was about Huck's age in the book. Twain portrayed religion and the morals of the southern society with satire.

"The men took their guns [to church] ... and kept them between their knees..." (Twain 142) was just one example. In the time of Twain's life that he wrote this novel, the Civil War had just ended. The war had tested society's morals. ...

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river from Twain's home. These two runaways, a beaten boy and a slave built a place to escape to on their raft. Eventually though, the values of the people on shore found their way into Huck's and Jim's thoughts. This became a major theme in the novel. During the Civil War, many people were divided on the issue of slavery. Even when they tried to ignore the problem, it crept its way into their minds. While traveling down the Mississippi River on the raft, Jim, the "runaway nigger", was free (Twain 76). Although Twain used the word "nigger" approximately two hundred and thirteen times in his novel, the message he was sending was anything but racist. Twain wrote, "Miss Watson's big ...

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