American literature is a highly important source of American history, regardless of genre, author, or the validity of its content. Literature is a personal extension of the author. It carries over the author 's ideals, prejudices, and influences to paper. Mark Twain 's landmark novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, cannot express this point any better. In Huckleberry Finn, Twain describes a south heavily marred, intellectually, culturally, and morally as a result of their active participation in slavery. Twain cleverly uses the main character, Huckleberry Finn who is just a child, to describe and witness the “horrors” of the south. But is this assertion fair, or more importantly, is it true? It is, and the facts only support this claim
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Culture, being how society views the world and how it worked, or as simple as how someone talks. From the moment you turn the first page, the language, though recognizable, seems out of place and outright foreign at times. Twain utilizes a whole army of words that would make the average read throw the book and run. Words like; soliloquy and impudent, plague the reader with lingo that seems inappropriate and out of place. Twain did this deliberately. The dialogue in huck finn is questionable and at times is just unintelligible. And to make matters worse, Twain seems particularly fond of using this dialogue to degrade people of color. Neglecting language, he further reduces southern culture by giving many of the characters a reliance on superstitions. Jim, in particular, believes that the events in his life are caused by recognizable, but insignificant, correlations. Early in the book, Jim is introduced to the reader as a mystic who uses a hair ball to read fortunes; "Jim had a hairball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it that knowed everything “ (2). The belief of superstition is often affiliated with primitive societies. People in the past have believed in witches, sun gods, and even dragons, but these ideas, in modern times, seem like nothing more then the product of an overactive imagination. The south, in the book, was no different. Twain openly mocked southern culture when he wrote. No one was safe, regardless of race. But, the most damaging of all Twain’s insults, was how represented the ethical standards of southern
Culture, being how society views the world and how it worked, or as simple as how someone talks. From the moment you turn the first page, the language, though recognizable, seems out of place and outright foreign at times. Twain utilizes a whole army of words that would make the average read throw the book and run. Words like; soliloquy and impudent, plague the reader with lingo that seems inappropriate and out of place. Twain did this deliberately. The dialogue in huck finn is questionable and at times is just unintelligible. And to make matters worse, Twain seems particularly fond of using this dialogue to degrade people of color. Neglecting language, he further reduces southern culture by giving many of the characters a reliance on superstitions. Jim, in particular, believes that the events in his life are caused by recognizable, but insignificant, correlations. Early in the book, Jim is introduced to the reader as a mystic who uses a hair ball to read fortunes; "Jim had a hairball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it that knowed everything “ (2). The belief of superstition is often affiliated with primitive societies. People in the past have believed in witches, sun gods, and even dragons, but these ideas, in modern times, seem like nothing more then the product of an overactive imagination. The south, in the book, was no different. Twain openly mocked southern culture when he wrote. No one was safe, regardless of race. But, the most damaging of all Twain’s insults, was how represented the ethical standards of southern