The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain - 1862 Words

In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain juxtaposed events in American society to demonstrate to the reader contrasts between different levels of class and race in society. Twain showed to the reader that people of all classes at the time were very ignorant and gullible, through what things appear to be and what they really are. Twain shows people’s gullibility when Huck arrives at the grangerfords. As Huck first walked through the house he described it by saying things like â€Å"This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth, with red and blue spread-eagle painted on it† (100) and â€Å"They had pictures hung on the walls†¦ they was different from any pictures I ever see before.† (101). Huck seemed to be amazed by all the things†¦show more content†¦The night that Tom and Huck set Jim free, Tom got shot by the farmers that were chasing them. Once they knew that they were out of the farmer s sight they all sat down and Huck said â€Å"We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.† (275). The reader would expect that Jim would be the most g lad when everything was over because he was finally free, but Huck tells us that Tom was. The reason he was the most glad is that he finally got the adventure he was looking for. When Tom first agreed to help Huck save Jim, Huck was a bit surprised that he said yes without any hesitation but what Huck didn’t really know was why he said yes. He soon figured it out, however, Jim didn’t. When Tom got shot, Jim genuinely thought that Tom was risking his life for him. However, the reader knows that since the beginning when Tom agreed to help Huck, he only said yes because he was looking for adventure. This shows Tom’s ignorance because he only did it thinking of himself and not thinking of actually helping Jim out. Through this, Twain shows that higher end class people like Tom and other white men could also be very ignorant and not just people from lower class. Twain showed that people of all classes, both low and high, are very gullible and ignorant. Hypocrisy was something that also showed the ignorance of white or higher class people during this time. While Huck was living with Miss Watson, she tried to