Pierre Smith
English III
1A
11/10/12

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in the town of Florida, Missouri. When he was four he and his family moved to Hannibal a town on the Mississippi river. His family was very wealthy and own several slaves. In 1847 his father died leaving his family in a whole forcing Clemens to get a job as a printer, making him unable to finish school. He gave up his printing career to work on a riverboat eventually becoming a riverboat pilot. Being on the water influenced Clemens greatly. It was also the place that he gained the author name Mark Twain, which came from the riverboat leadsmen’s signal. “By mark, Twain” the water was deep enough to pass through safely. Life on the Mississippi river also inspired material for several books including Huckleberry Finn. He later went off with his brother and became a silver miner, then finally found his calling as a journalist and signed several articles with the name Mark Twain. Mark Twain creates Huckleberry Finn by heavily using theme, motifs, and symbols.
Mark Twain pushes theme throughout this writing piece which is racism and slavery. In huckleberry Finn Mark Twain exposes the hypocrisy of slavery; “I wouldn’t shake my nigger, would I? The only nigger I had in the world, and the only property.” (196). he shows racism twists the mind of the punisher just as much as the punished. This causes people to be pulled away from their moral beliefs. In Huckleberry Finn an example is how white people like Miss Watson and Sally Phelps express no concern about the injustice of slavery or the cruelty of separating Jim from his family. “Ole Missus - dat’s Miss Watson, she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouln’ sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trade roun’ de place…I hear ole missus tell de wilder