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The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn By William Twain

Decent Essays

I. Setting
a. b. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins in Huck’s hometown of St. Petersburg, Missouri. Originally, Huck lives in a clean estate with prim and proper Widow Douglas and Miss Watson who attempt to “sivilize” him. His drunken money-seeking father then abducts him and takes him to a dirty, isolated cabin across the Mississippi River. Huck escapes and floats down the river in an abandoned canoe to Jackson’s Island, lying in the middle of the Mississippi. Here, Huck finds runaway Jim. The peaceful, providing island tempts Huck and Jim to stay, but fearing that someone saw smoke from their fire, they float down the river on a raft. They intended to stop at Cairo and continue in a steamboat to the free states, but the …show more content…

On the peaceful Jackson Island, he learns to relax and let time stand still. And while floating the river with Jim he becomes as untroubled as the steady Mississippi. The setting also affects both Huck and Jim’s feelings about slavery. When he first agrees to help Jim, he has only a few concerns about the legality and morality of his decision, but as they float further and further south, Huck has more and more concerns about getting caught, plausibly caused by the escalating racial tension in the south. Jim is originally very concerned about being sold south because he knows he will be treated poorly and separated from his family. As they near what they think is Cairo, Jim becomes confident and tells Huck about what he would do once he is free (248). This worries Huck so much that he decides to turn Jim in, but eventually changes his mind. Floating further down the river causes Jim more and more anxiety as they are heading deeper and deeper into the south he so dreaded.
II. Point of View
a.
b. The point of view of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is first person. Huck narrates the book, so his perspective on two main issues, race and civility, help to enrich the story with his perspective. Like many in America in the early 19th century, the south specifically, Huck was raised in the midst of people who didn’t give the morality of slavery a second thought, as it was deeply installed in American society. So

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