3 Review(s)

Rated among the most excellent works of American fiction, Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn paints an unforgettable picture of Mississippi frontier life, combining picaresque adventure with challenging satire and great innovative power. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a brilliant satire on racism, giving a taste of American life in the late 19th century. It is the story of Huck Finn who recounts his adventures after being taken away from the Widow Douglas's by his drunken and brutal father. But he escapes and joins up with a runaway slave, Jim, and together they make their way down the Mississippi on a raft. The picaresque device of a journey serves to introduce a number of interesting events and a variety of colourful characters. Huck becomes a witness of the feud between the Grangerford and Shepherdson families. He and Jim are joined by two villainous confidence men, the 'Duke' and the 'Dauphin', who sell Jim into captivity, but at the end of the novel, Tom appears in time to help Huck to rescue him in a characteristically romantic and quixotic manner. Universally popular as an adventure story, the novel is also an invaluable moral commentary on the nature of 'American experience' and the institution of slavery. Its wonderful story, non-stop action, depiction of youthful innocence, backwoods charm, and twists and turns in the plot are simply spellbinding.