Notes on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

             Setting: Late 1800's, Along the Mississippi River
             Plot: When the book begins, the main character, Huck Finn possesses a large sum of money. This causes his delinquent lifestyle to change drastically. Huck gets an education, and a home to live in with a caring elderly woman (the widow). One would think that Huck would be satisfied. Well, he wasn't. He wanted his lifestyle back. Huck's drunkard father (pap), who had previously left him, was also not pleased with Huck's lifestyle. He didn't feel that his son should have it better than he. Pap tries to get a hold of the money for his uses, but he fails. He proceeds to lock Huck up in his cabin on the outskirts of town. Huck then stages his kidnapping and subsequent killing and takes a canoe across to Jackson's Island in the Mississippi River. There he comes across a runaway slave, Jim, and the two decide to leave the area. Huck leaves to avoid his father, and Jim leaves to escape a false charge of murder. The rest of the story follows all of their exciting and action-packed adventures down the Mississippi River.
             Slavery is a big theme in this story. Mark Twain was obviously against slavery because it is hypocritical. Throughout the book we see Huck interacting with Jim as a human to human, while everyone else treats him like a piece of property. He was especially against the Christians who promoted slavery, since it is obviously wrong and against Christian ideals. Twain also shows the hypocrisy in another theme, religion. In one scene, the Shepardson's and the Gangerford's are listening to a sermon about brotherly love, and in the next scene they are shooting and killing each other. This is exactly the kind of behavior that twain didn't like. However, the main theme in this book is breaking free. He urges his readers to do the right thing, not necessarily what everyone else is doing. He illustrates this ideal with Huck. Most everyone else thought of Jim, along with blacks in
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