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Paradox Of Freedom In Huckleberry Finn

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Freedom: the right to speak or think as one wants without restraint, the absence of foreign rule or an autocratic government, and the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. The words life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were hypocritical. There is no way to sugar coat it; America, the land of the free and home of the brave, was founded with the use of slave labor. The emancipation of slaves was over a hundred years ago, but there is still some form of imprisonment or bondage in today’s society. Although it seems America has achieved freedom to all, the question still reigns: Is freedom a realistic goal to obtain or is it just a fantasy that people tell themselves in order to feel good? In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “Twain …show more content…

First,"Jim's situation at the end of Huckleberry Finn reflects that of the Negro in the Reconstruction, free at last and thoroughly impotent, the object of devious schemes and a hapless victim of constant brutality”, which means that once Jim is out in the real world, he will have to face many problems that hamper his freedom from bondage ("The Paradox of Liberation in Huckleberry Finn"). During the Reconstruction Era in the nineteenth century, many southerners did not recognize the freeing of the African Americans and still viewed them as slaves. If Jim were to look for a job, he would not be free from persecution and if he did find one, it would be one similar to servitude. Jim’s rights would still be limited, meaning that he would not treated like a free man. Although Jim was free on paper, he was not a free man in …show more content…

[He had] been there before” (220). When Huck says that he had been in a situation similar to the one with Aunt Sally, he shows the reader that freedom is never truly achieved. This is due to a cycle of one becoming free, and soon after being coerced into some kind of enslavement, ultimately taking away the liberty that they had fought so hard for. The quest for a form of true liberation is a goal that is unrealistic because people will always have liberties taken away from them, even if they are not aware of

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