Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn so innocently reveals the potential nobility of
human nature in its well-loved main characters that it could never successfully support
anything so malicious as slavery. Huckleberry Finn and traveling companion Jim, a
runaway slave, are unknowing champions for humility, mercy, and selflessness. “Twain
used realistic language in the novel, making Huck’s speech sound like actual conversation
and imitating a variety of dialects to bring the other characters to life.” The adventurous
nature of the story and its noble characters celebrates freedom from social and economic
restraint, and it is apparent from the beginning through his satiric portrayal of human
characteristics that Twain believes that all people deserve their own freedom. When
Huck is unable to take the restrictions of life any longer, whether they be emotional or
physical, he simply releases himself and goes back to what he feels is right and what
makes him happy. Hence, one of the most prominent and important themes of
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is freedom. Freedom not only from Huck's internal
paradoxical struggle in defining right and wrong, but also freedom from Huck's personal
relationships with the Widow Douglas and his father, as well as freedom from the societal
institutions of government, religion, and prejudices.
“The plot is a deceptively simple story about two runaways: Huck, a white boy
fleeing civilization, and Jim, a black man running away from slavery.“ Throughout the
story Huck is plagued with an internal moral dilemma of what he feels is right and what
he is taught is right. Huck is possibly the only character in the story that operates solely
on his own moral convictions. This produces significant conflict when the accepted rules
of society, often corrupt in nature, are imposed upon him. The best example of this