Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Mark Twains Pessimistic Views Exposed in The Adventures of Huckleberry
Mark Twain's Pessimistic Views Exposed in Huckleberry Finn    In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain simply wrote about a boy and the river. In doings so Twain presents the reader with his personal view of mankind, whether he wants to or not:            Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative                will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in                it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot                will be shot. (2)  Possibly by giving us this warning Twain admits to the existence of a clear motive, morality, and a strong plot in his masterpiece. Nonetheless, Huckleberry Finn, through examples of hypocrisy, greed, violence, and racism, shows Twain's pessimistic view of society and corruption of the human race as a whole.       To understand the pessimism of the book, we must first understand Huck. Huck is a character though whose eyes we see the ugly truth about mankind. Huck is always on the run from people. In the beginning we see him living a prim and proper life with the widow. He is then abducted by his father, and for a time is relieved to get out of the moral trappings of the town, and live sloppily, doing whatever he wanted to do. "It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day." (24) After some time, and being unable to endure the abuse of his father, he runs away. Huck is as dissatisfied by one extreme as he is by the next. Huck chooses not to take sides on any matter, but instead be indifferent towards it. Huck avoids moral decision making throughout the book as much as possible. In the end of the book Twain saves Huck... ...and subsequently the evil and corruption synonymous with it, must follow.  Works Cited Carey-Webb, Allen. "The Pessimistic Huckleberry Finn." English Journal 82 (November 1993): 22-34. Clemens, Samuel. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter, et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Lexington: Heath, 1994. 236-419. Hoffman, Daniel. "Black Magic--and White--in Huckleberry Finn." Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: An Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Sources Criticism. Ed. Sculley Bradley, et al. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1977. 423-436. Kaplan, Justin. "Born to Trouble: One Hundred Years of Huckleberry Finn." Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Eds. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. Boston: St. Martin's, 1995. 348-359. Â
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