The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Why Huckleberry Finn Rejects Civilization

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Why Huckleberry Finn Rejects Civilization

Why does Huckleberry Finn reject civilization? In Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain describes Huck Finn as a normal down to earth kid from the 1800's. Huck Finn rejects civilization because he has no reason for it. What has civilization done for him? Nothing! It has only hurt him one way or another, time and time again. Why should Huck Finn like civilization? Civilization is on land. All that the land and civilization has brought him was bad things. For example his father, Pap, beat him with a hickory stick when he was drunk: " But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand it. I was welts all over"(page # 189). Another thing Pap did to Huck was he locked him in the cabin, sometimes days at a time. "He got to going away so much, too, and locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days."(page # 193). No wonder Huck hated the land and civilization! Many of Huck's bad experiences are on land and involve civilization. Jim being sold and that whole incident was almost really bad. Huck almost lost his best friend throughout the trip. "I was a thinking and Jim was real good to me."(Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn). Huck called up Tom and they had a scheme to get Jim back. It worked but just barely. Because of this reason, Huck is rejecting civilization. Most of these things would make any of us reject civilization, too. Huck had all the reason in the world to reject civilization. He proved that he didn't need it. He was probably better without it. He was better without it. He was happy in the raft. He doesn't really need money for anything so he could just be a drifter. Work Cited Twain. Mark. Adventures Of Huckelberry Finn. USA

Sources

Baetzhold, Howard G. "Samuel Longhorn Clemens." In Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography: Realism, Naturalism, and Local Color, 1865-1917. Gale, 1988, pp. 68-83.

Bridgman, Richard. Traveling in Mark Twain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

Camfeld, Gregg, ed. The Oxford Companion to Mark Twain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Chadwick-Joshua,