Changes

The story has village truant Huckleberry "Huck" Finn (friend of the hero of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer|Tom Sawyer]]'') run away to avoid beatings by his drunken father.

The story has village truant Huckleberry "Huck" Finn (friend of the hero of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer|Tom Sawyer]]'') run away to avoid beatings by his drunken father.

Huck teams up with Nigger Jim, a slave who runs away to avoid being sold South.

Huck teams up with Jim, a slave who runs away to avoid being sold South.

The two head down river on a raft and have several adventures. Perhaps the most poignant is the storm scene in which Huck changes his view of Nigger Jim as "just a slave" to "a human being".  

The two head down river on a raft and have several adventures. Perhaps the most poignant is the storm scene in which Huck changes his view of Jim as "just a slave" to "a human being".  

Huck's decision to regard Nigger Jim as fully human and to ignore his "conscience" so as to risk "going to hell" to save him is the radical anti-slavery core of the book. It is significant that the story was written by a southerner from Hannibal, Missouri just two decades after the end of slavery.

Huck's decision to regard Jim as fully human and to ignore his "conscience" so as to risk "going to hell" to save him is the radical anti-slavery core of the book. It is significant that the story was written by a southerner from Hannibal, Missouri just two decades after the end of slavery.

Instead of having Huck realize that slavery is wrong, Twain wrote his book as a satire of slavery, to show the negative effects of slavery on society.

Instead of having Huck realize that slavery is wrong, Twain wrote his book as a satire of slavery, to show the negative effects of slavery on society.

[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/76 Full text available at Project Gutenberg]

[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/76 Full text available at Project Gutenberg]

[[Category:Novels]]

[[Category:Novels]]