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Huckleberry Finn Symbolism Essay

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Additionally The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn analyzes and criticizes the growing blight sweeping society due to the influence of individuals’ wickedness infecting those around with the use of symbols that represent evil and purity, the development of contrasting characters, and metaphors to convey Twain’s critique further. The most important symbol in the novel is that of alcoholism and Huck’s dad, referred to as Pap; with Pap representing an evil which contributes to the stagnation of society, something characterized by Pap’s unwillingness to allow Huck to go to school and evolve, with Pap stating ““And looky here-you drop that school, you hear? I’ll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better’n what he …show more content…

This quotation shows how Pap is preventing Huckleberry from growing and maturing, not allowing for a change in what he is familiar with, and when one looks at Pap’s vice of alcohol, one may witness the corruption of a society through the manifestation of a stubborn evil which walks its street in search of money that refuses change. This sentiment becomes more evident when looking at Pap’s rant on the government and black people in which he states ““It was ‘lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn’t too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they’d let that nigger vote, I drawed out.”” (Pg. 27) The quotation deepens the symbols that are alcohol and Pap; showing that alcohol stagnates progress as it promotes the sin that is sloth, and this vice combined with Pap’s stupidity and stubborn conservatism creates for a rebellious attitude that Huck inherits. A metaphor develops from here which displays Huck’s purity and wit compared to Pap’s impurity, gluttonous appetite, and stupidity, and how due to Huck lacking any real vice and utilizing the rebellious attitude of his father, it seems that the sin of the father becomes the virtue of the

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