This novelette is a work of one of the greatest names in the American literature, Mark Twain. Author has very successfully depicted the adventures that serve as a good entertainment. Not only does it depicts the adventures of a child protagonist but also brings forth the unchecked racial discrimination with the niggers in the West at the time as earlier as 1884. Though harsh treatment of niggers seems to be on author’s mind, his central theme appears to be the adventures of the little Huck Finn.
The story begins with Huckleberry Finn, living at her aunt’s place. His inclination for adventures and tendency to set himself free from being under his father’s duress prompts him to run from his father’s place to the forests. He finds solace on the discovery of Jim, his aunt’s nigger. They both while trying to escape being caught again shares a good time in the forests. In spite of some untoward incidents like – being bitten by snake and on the brink of being landed in the trap of the people searching for them, they manage to escape and keep together. The way little Huck outdo the two acquaintances, claiming themselves to be the scions of older kind dynasty, is spectacular.
The efforts put in by Huck to protect his comrade Fin from being victim of nigger hunt are worth appreciation. But he could not help preventing Jim from being the prisoner at some southern village. The last adventure played by both Huckleberry Finn and his friend Tom Sawyer lends a captivating grace to the denouement.
The language seems controversial at some places but the author’s intentions have been best revealed the way he has written this tale. Some adventures in the story seems to be ordinary and does not live up to the reader’s expectations. But the author has been very true in the declaration in the beginning of it-
“Persons 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 in it will be shot.”
It also puts to rest the controversies of racial plot being considered one of the author’s intentions in writing this book.
