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The Theme of Freedom in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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The Theme of Freedom in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
In Mark Twain’s classic novel, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, freedom is the prominent theme. Written over a ten year period, and completed in 1884 during post-civil war re-construction, the novel focuses on American society in the pre-civil war period (c. 1840), and in particular the issues of race and slavery. The novel’s two central characters, Jim a runaway slave and Huck a runaway boy are both seeking freedom. “ It is, as Marx so capably argued, what the book is about, but his own judgment that freedom in Huckleberry Finn "specifically means freedom from society and its imperatives," (Schmitz). For the two, freedom from “society’s imperatives” has very different meanings. Huck seeks freedom from civilization and the rigors of life with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson as they try to make him into a young gentleman. Jim seeks freedom from slavery and the opportunity to reunite with his wife and children. Although neither attains the freedom they were seeking, the journey down the river allows Huck to develop as a human being and attain an “inner freedom” from the pro-slavery attitudes and prejudices in which he was raised.

Huck’s initiation into adulthood shows his inner struggle to be free from the grips of society. Huck is stuck in a world in which he feels alienated. While in captivation (by the Widow Douglas), Huckleberry is not the person who he wants to be. He cannot seem to escape the grips of society. As he points out, “Jim can say as soon as he escapes from Ms. Watson, ‘I owns myself,’ while Huck is still ‘owned’ by the expectations of society that he become a gentleman and he is being forced to grow up against his will and conform. Huck desires the freedom to be a child, as illustrated in the following quote:
The freedom Huck strives to attain is his right to be a child…….. The unregenerate poetic child alive in his body and sensitive to the mystery of being in the world. Miss Watson correctly perceives the subversive


Cited: Nichols, Mary P. "Huckleberry Finn and Twain 's Democratic Art of Writing." Bloom 's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File News Services, 2002. Web. <http://www.fofweb.com/Lit/default.asp>. Pinsker, Sanford. "Huckleberry Finn and the Problem of Freedom." Bloom 's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File News Services, 2001. Web. <http://www.fofweb.com/Lit/default.asp>. Schmitz, Neil. "The Paradox of Liberation in Huckleberry Finn." Bloom 's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File News Services, 1971. Web. <http://www.fofweb.com/Lit/default.asp>. Stocks, Clair. "Literary Contexts in Novels: Mark Twain 's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"." Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=111&sid=96fd0a9a-7440-463d-a679-3a09587ba059%40sessionmgr14&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=lfh&AN=23177124>. Twain, Mark, and E. W. Kemble. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Pleasantville, NY: Reader 's Digest Association, 1986. Print.
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