Huck Finn: Small Town Life Essay, Research Paper

In Mark Twain?s novel ?The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?

he talks about small town life in Southern Mississippi. He

portrays it as gossipy, a place where everyone knows

everyone and knows everyone else?s business and doesn?t care

to tell it. It is confining to Huck and Jim because there

is too much conforming to society. This is why they escape

on the raft.

In Chapter 18 when Huck goes into town dressed as a

girl to get information he talks to a woman who has only

lived there two weeks. She is able to tell him everything

that is going on despite this. This shows how in small

towns people aren?t afraid to talk. Not only did the woman

freely give all the information to someone she didn?t know,

someone had to tell her all about it in a two week tome

span. Twain is depicting small towns in a gossipy manner,

where no one has discretion.

Twain is also characterizing small towns as confining

with a lot of conformation to society. When Huck goes to

live with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, they try to

turn him into someone he?s not. They dress him up in fancy

clothes, try to teach him religion and try to take away all

of his individuality. They do this because this is what the

society in their small town accepts, and they don?t want him

to be different than anyone else, because how would that

make them look. Huck however, escapes their attempts to

?sivilize? him by running away.

Twain shows that he has some contempt for small town

life and it?s behaviors. Miss Watson is one of the main

people to show this because of her trying to change Huck.

Twain attempts to demonstrate this by portraying small town

life and gossipy and confining. His dislike is seen

especially through Huck who escapes the conformity to live

his own life.