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John Stewart
English 67
Lowell
16 February 2006
How is this novel an important record of American culture?
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel written by Mark Twain and is an accurate representation of American culture. It is mainly a record of American culture in the South. In my opinion, it portrays three main Southern cultures: industry, social status, and the southern way of life. It is a reflection of the South in the 1800s.
The first way this novel shows American culture is with industry. Industry was very important in the 1800s, especially to southerners. Close to the time this novel took place, the steam engine was being introduced. This was a big boost for Americans for many reasons. The steam engine was used for transportation. Steamboats were obviously huge as Huck tells you in the novel. When the steamboat ran over Huck and Jims raft, the boat is portrayed as a big monster coming to eat anything in its path (97). Steamboats were useful in transporting large groups of people. The steamboat back then was probably about the equivalent to what an airplane would be today. The steamboat was also good for farmers. Farmers could export their goods to many places along the Mississippi River. What helped tremendously was that the steamboat could go upstream to the North, increasing the business of the farm industry. The steam engine also aided Americans because it was used for a train. It took goods from the river and out to other places that may not have had a tributary coming from the Mississippi River. Steamboats were brought up continuously in the book to add emphasis on how important they were. Industry may not have been the most prominent way Mark Twain shows American culture in this novel, but it was definitely important.
The second way The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn shows a record of American culture is through social status. In the Antebellum way of life, people wanted to be on top of things and have it all. Sometimes they may not have even realized it. This is shown in the whole feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. They are two almost equal families when it came to social status, but they were both competing to be the best. Neither of the families knew why they were fighting, but subliminally, it was because one family felt the need to be better than the other. Huck describes the feud well when he says, “A feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other mans brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides goes for one another; then the cousins chip in–and by and by everybodys killed off, and there aint no more feud” (110). Social status was also important when it came to race. Although blacks were slaves, white people always felt the need to make it known that they were better than blacks. A black person having freedom was just absurd in the South because Southern plantation owners felt that