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Literary Realism In Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

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Literary realism is the style in which the perspective taken on life is objective and the events are plausible. Romanticism is a style that emphasizes emotion and the use of personal expression. Mark Twain was a firm believer in realism and often ridiculed Romanticism in his books. In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he criticizes Romanticism through the characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Tom is a foil of Huck, because Tom represents romanticism and he brings to light the realism that Huckleberry portrays. Twain conveys the faults of Romanticism through Huckleberry’s adventures.
Twain uses the feud between the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons, to criticize romantic ideals. The two families have been fighting for decades and this has resulted in many deaths. While Huckleberry is living with the Grangerfords, he asks Buck what he wants to kill a Shepardson for and Buck responds, “Why, nothing-only it’s on account of the feud” (Twain 97). Romanticism is portrayed here, because both of the families are fighting to death for a reason that they do not even remember. As a realist, Huckleberry does not understand the point of the war, or why people need to be killed. Through Huckleberry’s questions about the feud, Twain stresses his view that romanticism is foolish and lacks importance. …show more content…

Even though Huckleberry has an easy, simple, and safe plan to free Jim, Tom needs to make it more difficult and troublesome. At one point, when they are aiding Jim, Huckleberry realizes that there is a hole big enough for the slave to get out through, but Tom says, “I should hope we can find a way that’s a little more complicated than that… We’ll dig him out. It’ll take about a week!” (Twain 209). This is another example of Twain using Huckleberry’s realistic views to portray the uselessness of

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