Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn

I've been reading Huckleberry Finn for my AP English class. I find it insightful and humorous at times but it is boring. Aside from the fact that it has the 'N' word in there over 200 times there's nothing particularly unique to me about the book.

I know its supposed be satirical but about what? I don't see the satire in the book.

What are you opinions on the book:

Am I the only person who actually liked this book?

I know its supposed be satirical but about what? I don't see the satire in the book.


Mark Twain was a satirist, but I don't know if I've heard Huckleberry Finn described as satire. Huckleberry Finn, was, at the time, a scathing critique of slavery. It was one of the few books of the time to have a fully fleshed out black character- not just a comedic, racist, caricature. Twain shows the pain slavery and racism has caused Jim, at a time when many slave-owners were trying to claim that slavery wasn't so bad (think of Ron's arguments against elf-liberation).

FYI, Twain is one of JKR's favorite authors.

That said, by our standards, Twain wasn't quite as enlightened as he imagined himself to be. His books have very narrow portrayals of women, he was a nativist (against immigration), and enjoyed minstrel shows.

I didn't mind the book itself either, in spite of Mark Twain's flaws (which were mainly due to the attitudes of people at the time), he was still a good writer. And a lot of his comments on stuff in general make me laugh.

Probably the two core moments in the book are
(1) When Huck hears Jim describing how he had slapped his daughter for ignoring him telling her to do something, and then when he realized because of a slamming door that she was not ignoring him but had gone deaf, he hugged and cried over his daughter for slapping her when she could not have heard him. Huck does not see anything wrong with Jim slapping his daughter (that was pretty much the norm for whites or blacks of the day), but is quite stunned that Jim would feel so deeply sorrowful for having done so when he learned the true situation. Huck had never been treated with such considertion by his own lout of a father, and had indeed been beaten for simply being able to read. Huck realizes in that moment that blacks are not inferior to whites and that many are quite a bit better than some of the supposedly-superior whites he had known.

(2) Huck has an opportunity to turn Jim in as a runaway slave as he had intended to for several weeks. When it comes right down to the decision though, he cannot bring himself to do it, even though he has been taught all his life that helping a runaway slave is one of the most evil things a person could do. He announces his decision to himself, saying something like 'Well, I'll just go to hell then, before I'd turn in Jim.'


Huck is growing up morally and American readers were (and are) being challenged to do the same, to realize, as was noted again nearly 100 years later, that a person should be judged on the content of their charaster, not the color of their skin. There is much else in the book which ridicules the society of the day - more derision than satire - and the book bogs down once Tom Sawyer is back in Huck's life, but to me these deep moral challenges are the real core of the book's meaning.

Huck is growing up morally and American readers were (and are) being challenged to do the same, to realize, as was noted again nearly 100 years later, that a person should be judged on the content of their charaster, not the color of their skin. There is much else in the book which ridicules the society of the day - more derision than satire - and the book bogs down once Tom Sawyer is back in Huck's life, but to me these deep moral challenges are the real core of the book's meaning.

:agree: Mark Twain described the story of Huckleberry Finn as that "where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat." (From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn)) And in relation to your first point- Jim's honor and decency not only contrasts with Huck's father, but with many of the white people the two meet on their journey. Most critics see him as the true hero of the novel.

I read this book for my college English class and enjoyed it throroughly. I think the main thing about it is that you see the change in Huck once the book goes along. The thing that bugged me was the ending where Jim is declared free because of Miss Watson's will. That part just didn't seem right to me at all.