Symbolism in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark.
The novel is filled with wild adventures encountered by the two main character, Huckleberry Finn, an unruly young boy, and Jim, a black runaway slave. Throughout the novel, Twain uses Huck to satirize the religious hypocrisy, white society’s stereotypes, and superstitions both to amuse the reader and to make the reader aware of the social ills of that present time.
Through Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain shows how he believes in morals than in a structured religion. The conflict of good and evil is a recurring theme throughout the book. For example in a conversation between Jim and Huck, Jim tries to explain that Huck’s father, who is often drunk and abusive, has two angels guiding him.
The Mississippi River in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the ultimate symbol of freedom. It provides an escape from different deterrents for the book's two main characters, Jim, a runaway slave, and Huck a young, adopted boy. For one, the river is an escape from the cramped style of society and civilization.
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In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, there are many displays of symbolism throughout the 250 and some pages the many symbols can be seen as the following, the Mississippi River representing the freedom of Jim and Huck, the raft as the key observer that allows them to see what others cannot, and finally Huck himself as the curiosity and rebellion of men.
As Forrest Robinson writes in his essay “The Characterization of Jim in Huckleberry Finn”, “Jim does seem to change, from a plausible complete man to a two-dimensional racial stereotype”. Although many blame Twain for this deterioration of Jim, claiming that it is laziness in the writing, he actually appears to use this supposed flaw in the novel to strengthen his point.
Huck’s youth is an important factor in his moral education over the course of the novel, for we sense that only a child is open-minded enough to undergo the kind of development that Huck does. Since Huck and Tom are young, their age lends a sense of play to their actions, which excuses them in certain ways and also deepens the novel’s commentary on slavery and society.