Huckleberry Finn Theme Analysis

Controversial themes in stories are what contribute to making them some of the best pieces of literature. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, several themes like this are present. Mark Twain states at the beginning of the book that “people 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.” This is an example of Twain’s writing style called satire, the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues, which he uses all throughout the book to get the themes across to the reader.
Twain uses the novel to teach the audience about morality and ethics even though they don’t necessarily concur with one another. As mentioned earlier, Huck helped a runaway slave despite knowing it would be a death sentence for himself if they got caught. “‘But mind, you said you wouldn' tell—you know you said you wouldn' tell, Huck.’ ‘Well, I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest injun, I will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don't make no difference. I ain't a-going to tell, and I ain't a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le's know all about it’”(Twain 38). In spite of the fact that all of the people around Huck look down on black people and Huck has been raised to not think otherwise, he goes against society and stands up for what he knows is right. Huck is aware that he would be looked at poorly for this too, in his words maybe a “low-down Abolitionist”, but he knows him and Jim are the same; human beings. Let alone the fact that society would shun Huck if they knew he helped a runaway slave, back in that time period he would have automatically been hung. Yet Huck continued to stay by Jim’s side, because he knew his morals went against leaving another human to be trapped in
By the end of the novel it becomes clear to the reader that Jim is the one decent adult who is actually looking out for Huck, yet all the white people are ignorant to that fact and look at the color of his skin as a way to judge his worth as a human being. This is a clear indication of ignorance present in the society that surrounds Huck finn. “It's a dead man. Yes indeedy; naked, too. He's ben shot in de back. I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan' look at his face—it's too gashly”(Twain 45). Spoiler alert: the dead man ends up being Pap, Huck’s racist, ignorant, abusive, alcoholic father. Jim knew the dead man was Huck’s dad, and chose to act naive by using his normal superstitions to avoid Huck being scarred for life by seeing his own father’s dead body. Society looked at black people as evil and lower than them, but the odds of someone else protecting Huck from seeing his father’s corpse the way that Jim did would be highly unlikely. Despite Jim being the only adult who actually cares about Huck, he would still not be looked at the same way a white man would just because of the racist ideas that have already been considered the norm, which is blatantly ignorant. Twain uses this theme to make readers in that time period understand that the stereotypes they’ve created for black people in their head may be the opposite of the morals a