Moral and Social Injustices in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is a complicated and witty narration of the moral and social injustices that existed during the time of the novel. The end of the civil war became a starting point for realism in literature right after Romanticism, which focused on idealistic and imaginative views. Realism covered specific subject matter, especially in the representation of average middle-class lives. Authors wrote fiction that accurately represented average lives.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, contains the realistic ideas that focus on reality, morality and language. Realism is a literary style in which the author describes people in a realistic sense using events, emotions and real relatable situations. Implementing immense detail about situations into American literature made the reader feel more connected and immersed in the book and characters. Twain used events in the book to shape characters, which showed their true selves within the struggles they had to endure every day. Using relatable events helped us, the readers understand the characters and why they did things the way they did. Huck being only a 13-year-old in the book, dealt with his father being the towns drunk, and struggled to find a moral compass especially being friends with Jim who was a black slave - which was frowned upon by society. Jim, on the other hand, had to battle being a black slave and trying to not get sold. He went through extreme lengths to avoid being sold all because he wanted to stay with his family.

This showed that Jim was an extremely caring individual who would do anything for the ones he loved. Twain related most of the events with his own experiences. He derived characters from people he knew and even himself, this made the characters of the book even more real. Even the setting, St. Petersburg Missouri, was derived from his hometown. Twain created a realistic novel focusing on detail and imagery, so the reader can fully understand what is going on in the book. He focused on setting, which heightened a reader's sense to understand what was going on. Twain focused so much attention to detail, he used an entire page to describe the sunrise over the river. “The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line - that was the woods on t'other side; you couldn't make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warn't black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far away-trading-scows, and such things; and long black streaks-rafts ... and by and by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there's a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up.”

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This photographic description showed how Twain used his literature to stay as close to reality as possible. By showing the characters morality and how Twain related them to his own life, he showed a large aspect of realism during the 1840s. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn also displayed realistic qualities in the way characters would use their moral judgement. Society changed people's views in many ways poisonously. School and Religion was a large part in many people's upbringing, and it’s easiest to teach children when they are young because they are a blank slate and have no moral views. Children were thought to believe racism and slavery was right, and that white people were of a much higher status than black people. Because children were taught to think this way, that was the only way they saw as right- anything other than what they were taught was seen as absurd and simply not right. Because Huck grew up not going to school or church as often with his peers, he eventually learned to develop his morals, which were only slightly affected by societies views, but not as strongly as his best friend Tom Sawyer, who was raised as a comfortable middle-class white, unlike Huck. Huck begins to question his moral judgement when he becomes friends with Jim. He realizes that Jim is only human and is an intelligent caring individual. It becomes noticeable that Huck is still affected by society when he almost writes a letter to Miss.

Watson, about being with Jim and trying to escape, but he quickly comes to his senses and dramatically tears up the letter saying, 'All right, then, I'll go to hell!” This quote shows how Jim has been taught to believe that being around a black man is a sin and that he will inevitably be punished for this. Just as society taught Huck racism, it also displayed selfishness and egotism. People believed that it was okay to hurt or kill others based on their gain. Slaves and Negros suffered from this the most - often treated with disgust and suspicion. At first, Huck holds these morals to be true and right. Huck felt that Jim was inferior to him and that he is a slave and should be returned. He even wrote a letter about Jim's whereabouts and almost sent it before realizing that it is not the right thing to do. Huck upheld these standards for a while because it's what he was taught his entire life, it took meeting Jim and realizing that he is a regular human just like him to change his beliefs. He denounced the morals of society and did what he believed was right. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn never failed to show the characters true emotions and vulnerability while displaying their sense of morality, and their various reasonings for believing in what they did. Twain also displays realistic qualities in the way The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is written.

The speech and dialect are written to fit the period and the characters who are speaking. An example of this would be Jim, an uneducated slave spoke with slang, shortened words or used improper grammar. 'Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it ag'in.” Characters who were ultimately more educated and had a higher social class spoke with manners and were generally more grammatically correct. This proved how Twain focused on making the novel realistic by implementing the way people spoke, even if it was not grammatically correct. Alongside the characters dialect, the technique and word choice in which the book was written also showed a major sign of realism. Instead of using similes and metaphors, the book was written using journalistic matter, and vocabulary. Twain used Huck as the narrator of the book and applied every day common tongue to describe his perspective on assorted topics. Instead of writing the book poetically, he would write day by day in Hucks life, describing his every action, which helped us the readers identify who Huck is as a person. Also, the book today is considered sensitive and controversial because of the language used. The N-word was extremely common in the book and was used in a racist manner to describe negros. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is banned from many libraries and schools, although Twain was simply describing the way people used dialect during this period accurately. Twain used language in a way that shaped the realism era, the avid detail, and grammar used were unfamiliar to the then current literature written and was a major part of the new realism era. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a very important publication, that began to shape to realism era. By using Reality, Morality, and Language to describe events and characters in the book, Twain grabbed readers attention, especially when focusing on major issues before the civil war. The book today is still a memorable fiction and is becoming an even more important piece of literature that all people should read.