"I have no racial prejudice, and I think I have no prejudice of color, nor of caste, nor of creed. Indeed, I I know it. All I care about is that a man is a human being; that's enough for me. "Say no to plagiarism. a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get the original essay-MARK TWAIN, Concerning the Jews is the great American classic, a delight for the child's imagination and a paradox for. questioning adults For most, the novel is a masterpiece, a book placed at the top of the "readers' bucket list", but for some, especially the inquisitive minds in the literary circle, the novel has become. a subject of endless debate. the game board in a game of intellectual domination Unable to heed Twain's warning at the beginning of the novel, and perhaps attracted by it, hordes of writers returned. the pages of Huckleberry Finn and, in some cases, added more, searching for an underlying moral. In this essay, I will join the ranks of other writers and pour into the pages my moral interpretation of the controversial classic. By uncovering what critic James Phelan would call a "secret text," I will demonstrate that Huckleberry Finn is a historical metaphor, representing the hypocrisy, naivety, and duplicity of the emancipation movement and its aftermath. Since I seek to discover a "secret text" text" in the novel, it is imperative to understand exactly what the phrase means. In his critical essay, On the Nature and Status of Secret Texts: A Response to the "Letter in Brenner's "De Ole True Huck", James Phelan describes the writer's desire to discover the "secret texts", or the hidden message, point or moral code in a story. reader, or this attempt to discover a hidden meaning, can be interpreted in two ways: the "subversive" or the "inventive" The "subversive" path to interpretation is a path of resistance, where the critic questions the. “meaning shaped by the author” while, in the “inventive” route, the critic creates additions to the text, which, in turn, alter its original meaning. In my case, I chose the “subversive” route. Since its publication in 1885, many critics have taken up arms against Huckleberry Finn, questioning the novel's credibility because of its racial implications. Kafka once wrote that if a book is “the ax against the frozen sea within us, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not the ax; it is the frozen sea, immoral in its main premises, one of which demeans blacks and insults history” (342). ). While I have to admit that the book certainly seems demeaning to black people, it certainly doesn't insult history. For all its frankness, Huckleberry Finn managed to bring the horror of slavery to the surface; its meaning wrapped up in the form of a whimsical children's adventure. Anyone familiar with Mark Twain's political and moral views knows that he strongly opposed slavery and that his distrust of imperialist governments and aristocracies, as well as lowly and humble "poor whites", l led, in the following years, to questioning the entire human race. Mark Twain said in one of his memoirs: “It would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery; yet you will remember that at the beginning of the agitation for emancipation in the North, the agitators received little help or support fromanyone. Arguing and pleading and praying as they could, they could not break the silence of the universe that reigned, from the pulpit and down to the bottom of society - the moist silence that reigned. created and maintained by the lie of silent affirmation - the silent assertion that nothing was happening that interests human, intelligent people. » Mark Twain broke the silence by disguising literature written for "humane and intelligent people" in the form of children's literature and fantasy fiction. Unsurprisingly, the book caught everyone's attention. In Huckleberry Finn, Twain created an elaborate metaphor for the historic period of emancipation: a satire of the naive, deceptive abolitionists in the American Congress, and the imperialistic, hypocritical British. In the novel, Huck embodies the Northern abolitionist movement. Like the movement in its beginnings, Huck was a child, driven by ideologies and a desire for freedom. Although many would argue that Huck was actually seeking freedom from civilization, Huck was seeking freedom from the tyrannical grip of his abusive father and the ideologies imposed on him. Throughout the novel, Huck questions the lessons he has learned from Christianity, school, and the fanciful imagination of his friend Tom Sawyer. His questioning of the established moral code of the time reflects the radical thinking of the abolitionist movement. Huck is a constant disbeliever and is not easily fooled by those who provide information that cannot be proven. For example, early in the book, Huck is neither fooled by the assumption that his father was found dead floating in the river, nor by Tom's elaborate "thieves game", which he believes "had all the marks of a Sunday school. (43). After Huck frees himself from civilization and all its restrictive ideals, Huck goes down the river on his own adventure, with him, perhaps the only moral character in the novel, the slave Jim. Jim and Huck's freedom run along the Mississippi, into the heart of the South, represents the abolitionist movement south. During their journey, Huck and Jim become separated several times; however, the incident in the fog around Cairo is the most vital. In this scene, Twain shows the foggy areas that crept along the divide between the free states of the North and the slave states of the South. The fog is a metaphor for the dark ideology that existed in the border states where many could not decide whether they were for or against slavery. Other obstacles stood in the way of Huck and Jim's quest for freedom, the two most significant of which being the Duke. and the king, and the re-emergence of Tom Sawyer at the end of the novel. In many of his other works and personal memoirs, notably Follow the Equator, Twain displays a cold attitude toward British aristocracy and imperialism. In his biography, Twain said: “There never was a throne that did not represent a crime. " So it's no surprise that the novel's two most despicable characters, the crooks, were hilariously named Duke and King. Twain uses these characters to represent the British government. Historically, Britain was strongly opposed to American slavery; Yet, as Twain points out in Following the Equator, their actions against the natives residing in their African territories parallel the horrors of American slavery. Twain, speaking of British slavery, said: “It is slavery, and it is many times worse than was the American slavery which caused England so much suffering. » In the novel, the Duke and the King, complete impostors and hypocrites, make Huck and Jim believe that they are allies of their.