Huck Finn Theme Of Freedom

The freedom that comes with growing up is a common theme in Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Throughout the story, the readers witness a change in Huck. Near the beginning of the story, the readers experience Huck and Tom in a childish sense, though ironically they know more than most of the adults around them. However, over the course of the journey, Huck begins to understand the responsibility that comes with growing up. Huck’s responsibility may be seen in Chapter Twenty-Six when he is feeling guilty about the criminal activities of the duke and king, who planned on robbing the Wilks girls of their inheritance. Huck says, “I says to myself, this is another one that I’m letting him rob her of her money. And when she got
through they all jest laid theirselves out to make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so ornery and low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind’s made up; I’ll hive that money for them or bust.” At this point, there is a clear change in the way Huck feels about his actions towards others, a feeling that was not present at the beginning of the novel. Unlike before, Huck now feels guilt when it comes to criminal activity.
Although various themes are portrayed throughout Twain’s, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, the most prominent theme is of racism and slavery.
Though the book was written after the Civil War (after slavery had been abolished), it is set to before the Civil War, a time when slavery was a common feat. Twain’s main point in incorporating this theme is to show the readers that slavery oppresses the slaves (Jim) as much as it oppresses the white slave owners (Mrs. Watson, Sally Phelps). This theme can be seen in Chapter Twenty-Three when Huck says, “I do believe [Jim] cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so.” In this quote it is evident that Twain is communicating that everyone has feelings, and even during the time of slavery, slaves and slaveowners were in the same state of mind. Though slaves were obviously oppressed by their owners, the owners were also oppressed by their
slaves.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn also has elements of regionalism.
Regionalism is a way of describing people from a certain area, in this case Southern United States (Mississippi River along Missouri, Illinois, and Arkansas.). Twain uses regionalism in this novel through the characters’ dialogue. One example of this can be shown in Chapter Fourteen when Jim says,"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it." By making Jim talk with an uneducated Southern accent, it is easy to see that not everyone talks the same. Also, by using this, it is easy to compare the uneducated slaves to the educated slaveowners.
Twain also uses various stylistic elements throughout his book, the most obvious being humor. Humor is used in order to give a “serious effect” to some of the events in the novel. This can be shown in the Chapter One of the book when the Widow forbids Huck to smoke. When Huck asked her to smoke she told him that “ it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean and that I must try not to do it anymore.” Later, when the widow is smoking herself, Huck justifies by saying, “And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.” This is hilariously ironic because although the widow tells Huck that smoking is a “mean practice” and “is not clean”, she later goes and smokes herself. By using humor in a hypocritical way at the beginning of the novel, the readers get a sense of how the rest of the book will
be structured.