Twain

’s Pessimism In Huckleberry Finn Essay, Research Paper

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain simply wrote about a boy and the river. In doings so Twain presents the reader with his personal view of mankind, whether he wants to or not:

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot. (2)

Possibly by giving us this warning Twain admits to the existence of a clear motive, morality, and a strong plot in his masterpiece. Nonetheless, Huckleberry Finn, through examples of hypocrisy, greed, violence, and racism, shows Twain’s pessimistic view of society and corruption of the human race as a whole.

To understand the pessimism of the book, we must first understand Huck. Huck is a character though whose eyes we see the ugly truth about mankind. Huck is always on the run from people. In the beginning we see him living a prim and proper life with the widow. He is then abducted by his father, and for a time is relieved to get out of the moral trappings of the town, and live sloppily, doing whatever he wanted to do. “It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day.” (24) After some time, and being unable to endure the abuse of his father, he runs away. Huck is as dissatisfied by one extreme as he is by the next. Huck chooses not to take sides on any matter, but instead be indifferent towards it. Huck avoids moral decision making throughout the book as much as possible. In the end of the book Twain saves Huck’s indifferent persona by bringing in Tom to make the decisions for him.

Some may argue that in saving Jim , Huck saves face for the human race, giving a sense of hope for the future. However, Huck must go about freeing Jim in an underhanded manner, lying and stealing his way down the river. Also, Twain himself cuts down the “salvation” of Jim by, in the last chapters, revealing that the entire adventure was useless, that the same ends could have been met by staying home.

Violence plays a large role in the unflattering portrayal of man. In the opening chapters we see young Huck joining Tom Sawyer’s band of murderers and thieves. “We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money.” (10)

Although the reader realizes that the “gang” never does any physical harm to real people, the fact that this group of youngsters fantasizes about committing acts that were evil even to the most ignorant, shows the acceptance with which violence is perceived by man.

When Huck fakes his own murder, he employs a fantastic knowledge of graphic violence. He kills a pig so he can leave a trail of blood, marking the path the murderer took to dispose of Huck’s body. He takes the ax and “smashes” the door in to make it seem as if some deranged maniac hacked through the door. It takes this seemingly horrendous act of violence to begin Huck’s journey. In the Grangerford and Shepherdson scenes, violence is seen as a senseless act, committed by an inhuman instinct, rather than through intellect and will. As soon as the Grangerfords hear that their daughter ran off with a Shepherdson, their first instinct was to get the guns and bag some Shepherdsons. They did not stop to think that there might be an alternative solution.