From the outside, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain seems like a harmless, meaningless adventure of a boy, but it is really a demonstration of Mark Twain's personal views on society's morals and rules. The story takes place in Midwestern United States in the nineteenth century as Huckleberry Finn runs away from his home and joins up with a slave named Jim. Twain displays many political and social views; he mainly focuses on slavery and how wrong it is. Twain also shows his feelings on friendship, family, and criminals. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not only fun to read, but it is rich in political and social issues in the nineteenth century.
The story begins when Huckleberry finds the money stashed away from Mark Twain's previous book in the series. Huck is adopted by Widow Douglas who lives with her sister, Miss Watson. Huck is reluctant to live under Widow Douglas rules of being clean, going to church, and going to school but Tom tells Huck if he wanted to be in his "gang" that Huck had to be respectable. Soon, Huck's father, Pap, appears and asks for Huck's money and wants custody of him. Since Pap is the legal father of Huck, he gains custody of Huck and he tries to stop drinking. Pap, however, gives into the temptation of drinking once again and goes back to his old ways.
Pap would beat Huck when he came home to the small cabin drunk. Huck disliked these beatings, and fears worse beatings to come so he fakes his own death. Huck then ran away from the cabin to get away from his father. Huck soon finds Jim, a slave of Miss Watson, as he was escaping for his freedom as well, because Jim had heard that he was going to be sold to a plantation that treated its slaves poorly. These two travel down the Mississippi south-bound in search of new lives. A flood occurs and Huck and Jim see and uprooted house and raft. They both loot the house and find a dead body that has been shot; Jim refuses to show the face of the body to Huck because it was Pap.