American Experience in Huck Finn Essay Example for Free

American Experience in huck Finn EssayAll modern American Literature comes from one platter by Mark span c whollyed huckabackleberry Finn.. claimed Ernest Hemingway, a American author and journalist. This quote represents the inclination and perception of Huckleberry Finn as a defining irregular in American Literature, a time when a virgin civilisation was being formed westernmost of the Atlantic that had m each different subjects and characteristics than that of the literature in Europe. What makes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn so original and such a bureau of America is that whatever Huckleberry Finn, the character, is about or can be defined by, is what America was all about. by dint of this complex character, Mark Twain was able to create a new American capture and evidence the reader all about it. The main characteristics of the American make out that Mark Twain represented through with(predicate) this character included a sociable commentary on the south ern culture and its response to thrall and its general antebellum culture, the character that defines America and how America defines its spirit and the freedom from it, and the new anti-materialistic hero. The opening of the book deals with the most serious issue depicted the idea of thraldom and the response of the southerners to its in notwithstandingices.The majority of the American experience of slavery and its response are sh avouch through the relationship between the main protagonist, Huck and his friend Jim. When Jim rootage approaches Huck to tell him that he has run away from his master Huck replies, People would call me a low d give birth Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum- but that dont make no difference. I aint agoing to tell.. (1379). In a time when it was illegal to aide slaves in their escape, Huck was just beginning to start his moral dilemma of his loyalties to the law, and his friendship with Jim.This brings about a side subscriber line on the A merican experience of slavery that is non as developed as the response to slavery in Huck and that is how does a person act and tone in a society in which they have friends that can become slaves. In many Abolitionist books and essays at the time, the reader was directed to feel for the slave as a man, as a brother. They used emotions to show the hardships of the slaves and play upon the guilt of the bloodless American to end slavery. In Huckleberry Finn, Twain asked the reader to determine how they would act on slavery when they proverb their friends under servitude.This was a large issue because it brings out personal alliances with cultural alliances of the south. However, the main American experience Twain is trying to develop on slavery is not the personal relationship and whether or not slavery was a terrible issue, it was the southerners response to slavery. This is exemplified by two separate exercises. The first is with slavery and Jim, and the irregular is with Hucks abusive and drunken father who would lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard (1359). Both of these issues were just symbols of the southern distorted culture of the time.A culture that could enslave a man, calls themselves good Christian men, and indeed falls asleep drunk. What is peculiar about this sassy is not unavoidably Twains feelings regarding the faith of this culture. It is fairly obvious that he disapproves of such and shows that it is a morally defunct society, but rather what makes this novel truly representative of the American experience is showing how even someone who is not morally lessened acts upon it. Huck, who is shown through his helping of Jim and his friendship with Jim, clearly understands the injustice of slavery and the immoral acts his father does.What does he do about it though? Does he seek to transform this southern society through work or a mini-revolution? No, he just simply moves along. This is the central irony of the book, and thus represented of one of the ironies of the American experience in the 19th century. Huck Finn chooses to leave intact this society that is clearly in fatality of change, and just simply leaves the place behind. It shows that he is against slavery and the ideals of the south and thus wont have it off in it, but he also wont change it. This was one of the most braggart(a) experiences of America in the 19th century.Many whites disagreed with slavery, but if it did not affect their lives, as they were not necessarily the culprit or the victim, they just went on living their lives. The most common feature of this novel is movement. temporary hookup this was crucial in developing the irony that was the southern response to slavery, it is also important in itself. In this novel, the main characters are always going somewhere, leaving a place in which they didnt the like or had a bad experience, and moving on to the next. This sense of freedom from nature was feature that is intelligibly American.I n the novel, the river was acentral metaphor as it brought them food, their pot, but also gave them a means of transportation. The American experience of traveling for the sake of traveling and expanding yourself in nature is shown from their experiences with movement in the river. Huck Finn was a character who is always in motion, always free. This was seen by the fact that he did start out the escape trying to provide freedom for Jim up the river, but when they passed Cairo he did not stop. In fact, the new route would take them to New Orleans, a slave-trading capital of the south at the time (Johnson).The freedom that nature provided Huck was seen by his depiction of the nights on the raft as Its lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars.. (1423). This freedom brings a release from the world of land, the towns where people were entrapped in a cycle of guns, alcohol, and racism. He does not see in moral meaning in nature like the transcendental ists of the time, rather it was an escape of the modern world, a place to have pleasant feelings. This freedom is an American experience. In just a purely physical sense, America has the opportunities for freedom.Vast lands, ample rivers, defined seasons all allow the American to seek freedom from society. This is something that was not seen in Europe as you were subjected to just your own countrys land through language, cultural, and physical barriers. This idea of jumping on a raft and finding your freedom, both spiritually as in the case of Huck and physically in the case of Jim, is something that represents a true American experience. This myth of the open frontier continued in writing for decades to come, a myth that would allow the individual American to escape the rapidly growing urban centers that were developing an unlettered middle-class.The last particularly American subject is the hero of the novel himself, Huck. Huck is envisioned as this wild-eyed anti-society anti- inheritance hero. In coming-to-age novels of the time, many were determined to show the process the character mature, moving past their youthful selves and into a role of social acceptance of culture. Huck represents a new American subject, on who speaks as he wishes, and does as he wants. Because of his traveling lifestyle, Huck does not concern himself with inheritance or property for any matter.What mattered most for Huck in the story was the materials that made the journey possible. He was not concerned with his social class, his need for a life with a wife, kids, and money. This metaphor represents the American Anti-materialistic culture that was forming, and thus Twain depicted it as such in his story. The sense of anti-conformity culture was the subject, a view that was depicted primarily by Huck. To combat the idea that Huck was just a child, and this is how he was supposed to act, Twain introduces two characters.The Duke and Dauphin, con-artists who fishing rig people out of their money by performing productions represent the free nature, the anti-materialistic culture that Huck represents. part these two do act in order to obligate money, the goal of the money is not to obtain a higher social order, but to carry on in life. It supplies their thirst for fun. This was seen when after a heist, the Duke asks to count the money so that they can take and give it to the girls (1451). This shows that they went about their plan yes for the money, but the money was not an object that they desired it is what it can be immediately used for that defines it.This was against the European experience of inheritance and the desire to better oneself in a Victorian fashion, and represented an American subject. Huck finds out passim the story and the encounters with the people in the towns, how to live in order to escape the social conformity, thus creating his own identity. This idea of putting your obligations to you self-creation and fun, and not to the creation of a self that is defined by community or cultural standards was an effective approach to an American subject.In an extended metaphor, Huck Finn and his friends and acquaintances represent an American subject. Their reactions to slavery represent the blind eye and unwillingness to put about change in the southern culture of slavery and racism, a subject that would arguably represent the south to this day. At the same time, the river which took them away from their culture as opposed to fighting it, also represents the freedom of America, a subject Twain makes sure he repeats throughout the novel.Lastly, the characters themselves represent a new age of anti-materialism, a staunch contrast to the European idea of self-betterment for the sake of culture and standing. In all, these metaphors all show a new American subject. Cited Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Harper iodin Volume American Literature. Ed. McQuade et al. New York Longman. 1999. 1355-1522 Walter Jo hnson, Soul by Soul Life Inside the Antebellum striver Market, Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1999, p. 2 and 6.