The first half of this novel is filled with surprising and exciting events that happen to Huck and Jim. These events are very enjoyable to a reader, and made the novel much more interesting. Most of these events are episodic, because most of the adventure are totally separate from one another. Each chapter has a different story to tell the reader that is usually different from the last one. Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) even tells us what is going to happen in each separate chapter by writing it under the title of the chapter. Huckleberry Finn is almost a book of short stories with one main plot that lasts throughout the novel. This theme is that Huck and Jim are trying to escape together down the Mississippi River. But other than that, Mark Twain gives the reader a great deal of variety in the events that happen in the story. For example he went from Huck dressing up as a girl, all the way to finding a ship wreck, and boarding it. This book is a wonderful example of how a personal narrative can be written with different episodes.
In a personal narrative there is a lot of description lending to a leisurely reading pace to the story. This novel definitely shows a great deal of description and this leisurly pace. Even though it is quite an action packed novel, and many different things happen in a short period of time, there is still a lot of in depth description done by Mark Twain. At some points he will go on for pages about the weather, or the setting of a particular scene. It is nice, because he hardly leaves anything up to the imagination, and the novel is told in his way and not the way the reader interprets it. So far Huckleberry Finn has been a very enjoyable novel with a lot of intresting plot twists to it, and I am looking forward to reading the second half of it.
Huckleberry Finn has been a very enjoyable book for me to read, because I can relate to most of the issues in the novel indirectly. It always seemed that despite the performance of good or noble acts by Huck and Jim for each other or someone else, they always would end up being unhappy with themselves. They never seemed to be fully fulfilled or satisfied. It was almost as if doing a good deed for someone actually hurt them in some way. In chapter 41 Jim sacrificed his freedom to help Tom Saywer who was in great need of his help, due to getting shot in the calf. At the time Jim did not know that he was going to be freed so that he was unhappy that he was a slave again. Even though he had just done a very noble act he had lost his freedom and thus he was unhappy. The continueing contrast between good deeds and persistant insecurity helps give the novel its continued appeal and makes for a terrific personal narrative.
Huck Finn is told through the eyes of Huck Finn. Since it is written by Mark Twain I think he subliminally puts his opinions about major issues into the novel through the voice of Huck. The novel portrays overall hidden opinions on many major issues. Two of the important issues are slavery and the role of women in society. By making Jim look stupid, and kind of clueless throughout the book, Mark Twain is telling his opinion on how bright slaves are. By not having many women involved in the book he tells what he thinks about the importance of women. Also by having the few women that are involved in the novel get robbed, he shows readers that he feels women are inferior to men. There is also another truly hidden message in chapter 21 when Huck and his newfound friends/con-artists put on a fake show to make money. The townspeople are made out to be really stupid and clueless, and by depicts them this way, Mark Twain is implying that people as a whole were not very well educated back then. This clearly gives the readers his opinion on common folk. Huck Finn was a terrific novel, and I look forward to my next book.