The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Marxist Lens
This story was one that was truly coming of age. It truly represents the naivety and innocence we all had before stepping into another stage of our lives that we knew nothing about. But how Huck dealt with it in this book was sort of childish, despite he’s almost an adolescent. We have talked in past history classes about the issue of race before and after the Civil War, this was a sort of a dive in experience about a personal life of one of those victims and what they thought was right, and not to the ways of a society.
At first I didn’t know if Twain was trying to mock the pre war north (and I still cannot identify why) But I begin to single out the reason that Twain’s intention was to mix the meanings of growing up and introducing to children issues that was critical to american society at the same time. And as the chapters pass on I began to think that was one of his motives. I guess it was one of those things that made him so confusing to understand, because at the same time he’s introducing Jim, a black slave; and referring to him constantly with the “N” word; which is probably never one of the things children should hear at such a young age. But this was probably his way of introducing mature material to children; it had to be in their face and introduce them to the matters at a young age. Sure it would confuse them at first, and maybe after a more detailed explanation about why it was in the pre war period, they would still be a little confused but the point is now that they understand it, it would take away a portion of their innocence. It’s ethical for kids to be kids while they still can and never learn about such things until they get older. But Twain obviously thinks otherwise. At least that’s what I think his whole gist of it was. But we all have different opinions of this book, but we know one thing: Mark Twain was very complicated to figure out.
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