Huck Finn’s Digestion of Violence

Violence is the last refugee of the incompetent – Issac Asimov. Ignorance and superstition reigned on the frontier of the Mississippi River. The cruelty of the southern plantation owners and the general lawlessness of the frontier all attributed to the violence that occurred throughout the book. Whether murderous criminals, a feuding family, or an angry mob was committing this violence, Huck was forced to digest and overcome these scenes, and at the same time the reader learned more of life on the Mississippi River of the 1840’s.
One night while on the river, Huck and Jim stumble across a wrecked steamboat, and find a couple of outlaws contemplating the murder of a fellow outlaw. “I’m for killin’ him—and didn’t he kill old Hatfield jist the same way—and don’t he deserve it?” (73). This scene of individual violence adds to the image of 1840’s river life. Even though the west was becoming more and more civilized, a general...