Three major themes that Mark Twain and Harper Lee explore in Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird are appearance versus reality, the corruption and materialism of humans, and the importance of compassion. ... Great philosophers have said that greed is a part of human nature, a defining characteristic of humanity. ... The world in which we live has many people with the virtue of compassion, the ability to aid others while they are feeling down. ... Compassion is very evident in the To Kill a Mockingbird story. ... Cunningham, "pay with potatoes." (18) The whole community has a se...

• Word Count: 1159
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Throughout the book, Huck strives to define his opinions of religion, slavery, family, and friends as he defies society's. ... Huck begins to appreciate Jim and shows quite a bit of compassion, for his time. ...

• Word Count: 716
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Irony, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is defined as "use of language that has an inner meaning for a privileged audience and an outer meaning for the persons addressed or concerned." ... In A very interesting example of the situational irony Twain uses in chapter 27 is when the townspeople actually show compassion toward the blacks, which contradicts Twain's main theme. ...

• Word Count: 939
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Lester also argues in his essay that when Huck speaks of Jim in the end of the novel saying, "I knowed he was white inside,"" he is displaying "proof of liberalism or compassion, but evidence of an inability to relinquish whiteness as a badge of superiority. " However, Justin Kaplan quotes Mark Twain elaborating on growing up in a slaveholding society, saying, "Conscience can be trained to approve any wild thing you want it to approve if you begin its education early and stick to it."" ... Perhaps it is in the very nature of humor as he defined it like that, like Huck, its outcast hero, Mark t...

• Word Count: 1132
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate