However, if Twain's classic were to be truly appreciated as a real fiction novel, the book must be broken down into two separate ideals; the real and the fiction. .
In the book, Twain depicts a realistic attitude toward slavery through Jim, the runaway slave, while simultaneously giving the reader a wild ride of the moral growth of the orphaned boy Huck. Huck, who is believed to be around 13 years old in the novel, realizes that the civilized world with the Widow Douglas is incapable of protecting him against his drunken father, nor is it in him to live that way. Growing up without a mother, who died when he was young, and having a father who constantly beat him, Huck is all alone in an unfamiliar world. After Huck realizes that civilization cannot protect him from his father and he runs away -albeit during an unbelievable moment in his father's shack- Twain is able to show, even with sometimes more unrealistic encounters, how the United States and its people that inhabited lived and behaved. .
During Huck's adventure down The Mississippi with Jim, he begins to realize that he can think for himself and make rational decisions. His friendship with Jim is a big part in his moral growth throughout the novel. The epiphany he has when he decides not to send the letter to Miss Watson was a personal triumph. Twain uses Huck's friendship with Jim to gain sympathy from his readers for not only Jim, but also Huck himself. In one scenario during the float down the river, Huck has the opportunity to turn Jim in as the runaway slave he is. However, Huck realizes through a short thought process that he isn't any man's robot and that he can make decisions for himself. (Page 98)They went off, and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I have know very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don't get started right when he's little, ain't got no show - when the pinch comes there ain't nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat.
