The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

Submitted By apeach
Words: 1484
Pages: 6

“Don’t go around saying the worlds owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first” (Mark Twain). Mark Twain was a realist who made fun of romantics through many of his novels. This quote expresses his views about how one should view the world, and how people should live in reality. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain uses allusion, characterization, and satire to portray his realist ideas, and deflate romantic ideas. Allusion is used throughout the novel, and Twain especially uses it when he talks about romantics. Towards the end of chapter three, Tom has an idea that they should go raid a camp that was filled with “A-rabs and Spaniards.” When Tom and Huck get there it is nothing but a group of people from church having a picnic; and Tom refers to Don Quixote, “He said if I weren’t so ignorant, but had read a book called “Don Quixote,” I would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment” (Twain 21). Tom clearly thinks like a romantic by the way he goes about his life and the way he likes to see things. Tom wants to believe that he is about to raid and steal from Spaniards and A-rabs, but all that is really there are a group of people from church having a picnic. When Huck and Jim meet the Duke and the King they can tell they are not good people, but they decide that they should stay with them for a while because they know the truth about Jim. When they first meet them, Huck and Jim are very suspicious so the Duke and King explain who they are, “In another bill he was the “world renowned Shaksperean tragedian, Garrick the Younger, of Drury Lane, London” (141). The Duke and the King take on many roles and names so they can steal and cheat people from town to town. They are considered romantics because like Tom Sawyer, they like to come up with very elaborate plans and they do not think of things realistically. While the Duke and the king travel to different towns they perform scenes from Shakespeare plays, including Hamlet. The Duke teaches the King Hamlet’s Soliloquy, and when he does he makes a big show of it, “So he went marching up and down, thinking and frowning horrible every now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan...and after that, all through his speech he howled the spots out of any acting ever I see before” (148). Like a romantic the Duke makes a big show out of something that is not. The Duke is supposed to be teaching the King the soliloquy, but instead he makes it about himself. The behavior of these characters allude to their romantic notions of what they wish life would be like. It is a way of escaping the realism of their very ordinary existence. The characterization of Tom and Huck depicts Twain’s conception of realist views versus the views of romantics. Huck Finn is a young boy who has gone through some tough times that even some adults would not have been able to deal with. Huck can switch to being a child and acting like an adult very fast unlike his best friend Tom Sawyer, who always acts like a young child. Huck did not grow up in a family setting, he has been brought up by two women who are very proper and they do not deal with any nonsense; this has caused Huck to mature rather quickly and he has not had much of a childhood. His best friend Tom Sawyer, has had a normal life, and no one expects him to act older than he is. When the two of them are together they balance each other out, and they have gone through alot together; therefore they are best friends. Twain uses characterization when Jim speaks. Since Jim is a slave he is not very educated, so he slurs his words together and has a very thick accent, “Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, huck, plumb deef en dunmb-en I’d ben a-treat’n her so!” (168). Even though Jim is difficult to understand because he does not speak very formally he tells thinks the way that they are. Jim is telling Huck about his daughter and