Humor and Sentence Structure in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Humor and Sentence Structure in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Over the summer, I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic American novel that is a sequel/spinoff of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn, at the beginning of the novel has been adopted by The Widow Douglas and is learning manners, and learning to be civilized. Huckleberry Finn hates this type of life and finds it boring. However, Huckleberry Finn’s alcoholic father, rumored to be dead, kidnaps him away from the widow and locks him in a cabin. Huckleberry Finn lives there for a while, but his dad nearly drunkenly kills him. Huckleberry Finn, while his father is away from the cabin getting drunk, fakes his death and escapes to a nearby island with a raft. Everyone looks for Huckleberry Finn, and while on the island, he encounters Jim, a runaway slave who had belonged to the Widow Douglas. The fact that Jim is a runaway slave is the cause of a moral dilemma that Huckleberry Finn has throughout the novel. However, the two, stuck in the same raft, travel down the Mississippi River together, having all sorts of adventures.

One of the things that struck me about this book is the spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. Since this book is considered a “classic”, before reading  it, I had the notion that the writing would be formal and flowery. However, the language in this book is informal, casual, and sounds like someone is actually speaking. This though, may be in part to the fact that the book is told through the perspective of Huckleberry Finn. The book does a very good job of writing in a way which reflects Huckleberry Finn’s age and education level. The language also makes the book easy to comprehend for a reader of any age.

One of the most important reasons I enjoyed this book was its humor and jokes. The two characters I found especially comical were the duke and the dauphin. Huckleberry Finn is roaming around by himself, when he comes across two men who are begging Huckleberry Finn to let them onto the raft, for they are in great trouble. Huckleberry Finn lets them onto the raft, and soon figures out that the two men are conmen. One of the men claims that he is the long lost rightful heir to the French throne, while the other claims he is the English duke. The two do this to try to get Huckleberry Finn and Jim to treat them better, since they are royalty. The duke and the dauphin get caught scamming people in different towns all to make a little money. For instance, in one portion of the book, the duke and the dauphin travel to a town to put on a show. In this show, the dauphin acts like a fool, and everyone in the crowd loves it. The show however, ends very soon and is only a few minutes. The people who watched the first show tell everybody else to come to the show tomorrow without telling them what it is, so they watch it, are angered and attack the duke and the dauphin. However, they are able to run away before being attacked. They have a third show, knowing that the crowd will be an even larger group of people waiting to attack, but after taking all the entry fees, don’t perform at all and escape from the town on a raft.

Overall, these aspects of the book, combined with an intriguing adventure plot, a great set of characters and a powerful message, make for an excellent read that anyone can comprehend.