Example+in+the+Novel

= =Education in the book...= Throughout the //Huckleberry Finn// the reader encounters satirical criticism of education. Twain ingeniously takes on various aspects of education that reflect the circumstances in which our new born country stood at the time. Huckleberry Finn was one of the first pieces of American works that separated itself from European literature and made public their new and independent civilization. It was interesting that this novel focused on the aspects that differentiated it from its mother country. These differences were not necessarily positive but prevailing. Ernest Hemingway said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called //Huckleberry Finn//. . .”

Twain was the man to integrate realism, and he is still well known for that. From the Civil War to the end of the century (18601890) was the period of time in which various authors resorted to writing their fiction so to mirror and also exemplify the American life at the time. Huck Finn, for example, is the ignorant, humble, poor boy who runs away from his violent father, runs away from his benefactor, and runs off every time that he is at the point of becoming a civilized person. “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would civilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand in now loner I lit out.” (3) Twain uses satire to emphasize that life’s choices at the time were not just black and white. Many white people actually were uneducated, but many try to mask it by generalizing that the black population was ill-fated and condemned to desolation.

It is ironic that Huck and Jim “think” themselves freed from the hypocrisy and injustice of their society. While all along the two being directed by Huck, move further and further away from their original set point of destination, and actually head towards the heart of slave trade instead. Throughout the novel it is apparent that Huck is indeed an ignorant young adult, deprived or formal schooling, morally his education is satisfactory for his mind allows him to make the right choices. Many of the times Jim carries out through situations better than Huck, yet relentless of this Huck plays the dominant role for he is the white male. Chapter 31 set the greatest example of the low education and standards fo the time. From day one the society in which Huck and Jim subsisted in told them that helping a slave in any way was a sin in the eyes of God and that the punishment for such a feat merited them eternal misery. Yet Huck goes beyond mainstream white society’s conception of the world and defies them when he tells himself, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” (pg 191) preceding his tearing of a guilty letter to the widow.

Because of Huck’s ignorance he stumbles upon much moral confusion as he travels down the Mississippi. The people that Huck and Jim meet are all representations of the typical townspeople which Twain manages to interpret as selfish, spiteful, and vindictive. Some characters undoubtedly have good characteristics but throughout the story they remain at the same level because they in fact don’t demonstrate any growth in being. They don’t go through a hero’s journey, they simply stay monotonous.

P4 JCORONA