The Meanings of Huckleberry Finn"The finest clothing is a person's skin, but, of course, society demands more than that." – Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a coming-of-age novel that gives the reader a deeper insight into human nature and behavior. The novel picks up after The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and we find the protagonist Huck Finn again. Over the course of the novel we see Huck mature through his experiences as opposed to a “formal education.” The places and people that Huck encounters along his journey along the river were all able to teach him something new, or give him a new outlook on life and the different effects that different values ​​have on people. Through his responses, the responses of the people he encounters, and the way Mark Twain writes, we understand the messages in the text about why they make The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn one of the greatest American novels. Huck is a boy who comes from the lower classes. levels of white society. His father, known in the novel as Pap, is a rundown drunk who disappears for months at a time. Without parental guidance, Huck has no home and is unaware of society's expectations of him. Although the Widow Douglas attempts to change Huck, her attempts are in vain and he continues on his merry way. The community failed to protect him from his father, and although the widow provides Huck with some of the educational and religious education he had lacked, she does not uphold social values ​​in the same way as a middle-class boy like Tom Sawyer. Huck's distance from mainstream society makes him skeptical of the world around him and questions the ideals that have been passed down to him. At the beginning of the novel we meet Jim. Jim...... middle of paper...... 2003. Student Resources in Context. Network. April 15, 2014. Laurel Bollinger, “Say It, Jim: The Morality of Connection in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” University Literature 29, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 32-52.Newell, Kate. "You Don't Know About Me Without Reading a Book" Authenticity in Huckleberry Finn Adaptations." Literature Film Quarterly 41.4 (2013): 303-316. Academic research completed. Web. April 2, 2014. Sanford Pinsker, "Huckleberry Finn and the problem of freedom." Virginia Quarterly Review 7, no. 4 (Fall 2001): 642-49. "Themes and Construction: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Resources in Context. Web. 9 April 2014. Valkeakari, Tuire." Huck, Twain, and the Freedman's Chains: Grappling with Huckleberry Finn Today (0210-6124) 28.2 (2006): 29-43. Web. 9 April. 2014.