Can you imagine getting beaten to a bloody pulp? Probably not, in fact, you are most likely disgusted by the image that this question has put into your head. However, in the Confederate South of the United States, many blacks were beaten daily. Samuel Clemens, known as Mark Twain under his pen name, is known today as an abolitionist. This is because of his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In this novel, a young boy named Huckleberry Finn learns a valuable lesson. As the novel progresses, and Huck adventures with a runaway slave, Jim, Huck slowly begins to understand the evil in slavery and realizes that society is wrong in its treatment of slaves. He finally decides to follow his heart when dealing with Jim.
             Even at the beginning of the novel, before he has gotten a chance to explore what he believes is right, Huck has grown tired of dealing with society and what society thinks is right and civilized. This is significant because it helps make the idea that a fourteen-year-old boy could cast away the beliefs of his society much more believable. For example, he says, "The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me...I got into my old rags and my sugar hogshead again, and was free and satisfied (1)." Huck prefers living free and being able to think what he wants, rather than being "sivilized."
             Huck learns many lessons even before he gets on the Mississippi. For example, when Huck escapes from society, he runs into Jim at Jackson Island and is very happy to see him. Later Huck plays a mean trick on Jim. He kills a rattlesnake and puts it on the foot of Jim's blankets. Huck expects that Jim will react like any stereotypically, foolish, black person. Huck thinks that, "[Jim's] eyes will bug out; his teeth will chatter; his knees will knock together..." (Page 63) etc; and Huck will have a good laugh. But Jim is not a stereotype, and the joke turns bad when ...