Mark Twain addresses many themes, especially slavery, in The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn. The setting takes place before the Civil War, which resulted in the abolition of slavery, so slavery plays an important role in the story. Huck Finn, the novel's main character, contemplates supporting and denouncing slavery. Huck's heart tells him that slavery is wrong, but having grown up around it, Huck never knew to oppose it. Huck's internal struggle between listening to his head and following his heart makes a major impact in The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn.
Huck Finn's soul could never be contained. Sick of living in society and behaving in a civilized manor, Huck escapes to Jackson's Island. Huck soon discovers that Jim, Ms. Watson's runaway slave, ran away to the island as well. The two soon become friends, and discover that members of their town started a search for them. They quickly prepare to leave the island: "Then we got out the raft and slipped along down in the shade, past the foot of the island dead still-never saying a word" (Twain 63; ch.6). Huck and Jim begin to travel along the Mississippi River. This journey, for Jim, heads towards freedom. This presents Huck with his first conflict. Huck knows that he should turn in a runaway slave, but soon, Jim begins to talk about the life he will lead once he makes it to freedom: "the first thing he would do when he got to a free state he would go to saving up money, he would buy his wife; and then they would both work to buy the
two children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an Ab'litionist to go and steal them" (88; ch.16). This frightens Huck because he never hears a black person talk so openly against slavery: "It most froze me to hear such talk" (88; ch.16).
Further along in Huck and Jim's adventure, slave hunters capture Jim and hold him as a prisone
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