There may never be another novel written quite like Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. It combines adventure, suspense and comedy to create a most accurate account of the times. Huckleberry Finn warms the heart of the reader by placing an ignorant white boy by the name of Huckleberry Finn in some strange situations, having him tell his remarkable story the way it streams into his own eyes. Huckleberry Finn is nearly always confused on account of so many different kinds of people having such different impressions upon him; he turns to his own heart and intelligence for guidance. Huckleberry Finn has a heart of gold, and grows as a person throughout the story.
Huckleberry Finn’s setting jumps around to a number of different places. The beginning takes place in St. Petersburg, Missouri in around the 1840s, before the Civil War. Huckleberry lived in a very “sivilized” household; a rather prosperous one as well, with the Widow Douglas. It was a time of slavery, though throughout the entire novel there was very little said to put down African Americans. The characters in the book, as many as there were, were all created by Twain to respect and acknowledge the decency in their slaves.
There are two main characters in Huckleberry Finn: Huckleberry Finn, and Jim, a runaway slave. Huckleberry Finn finds himself torn between his own judgement of helping Jim escape, and the people around him who support slavery in it’s entirety. He is in a bad and dangerous situation while with Jim, because anyone might possibly think Jim a runaway “nigger” and turn him back in for the reward of cash, as well as clout for being honest. But Huck is a very bright and creative young man, and uses his intelligence to both his and Jim’s advantages in order to save their lives, on more than one occasion. He is quite brilliant under pressure, as when encountered by two men looking for runaway “niggers”. The men inquired about who else was with Huck. The men threatened to come closer and see, and Huck replied, “I wish you would, because it’s pap that’s there, and maybe you’d help me tow the raft ashore…He’s sick…” and Huck let on that he needed the men’s help, and that his “pap” was awful ill, and soon enough the men hollered, “Keep away, boy. Confound it, I just expected the wind has blown it to us.
Creators and Parasites in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead
Creators and Parasites in The Fountainhead
“The creators concern is the conquest of nature. The parasites concern is the conquest of men,” Howard Roark states in his dramatic courtroom speech defending himself after the Cortlandt Homes incident. This quote sums up the two categories of people in rather graphic form. The creator, or non-conformist, being glorified in his attempt to better the very earth itself, independent of the constraints of humanity. The parasite, or conformist, being reduced to the lowest of all species, with a selfish goal of ruling man. This is a goal a conformist will never reach because instead of guiding society, the conformist is bound by societies rules. This accurate depiction can be visibly seen in the characters of Howard Roark, Peter Keating, and Ellsworth Tooey.
Howard Roark is a creator, and he knows it. Glorifying himself, although not looking for praise, but rather stating something that is as common to him as a fact. A devout anarchist, Roark views nature as something that man must improve upon. He has no desire for anything from mankind, he does not want to be a leader, or even for others to see the world his way, he simply doesn’t care about those things. The destruction of the Cortlandt Housing project is a result of a view that any alterations of a creators plans by a mere parasite perverts something sacred. In keeping with this ideal it appears sickening that any person would lower their talents to the level of standard society, even if they do it for the sake of survival. A creator must never compromise, especially to the whims of lemmin…
… middle of paper …
…; Roark exists untainted by the disease that is conformity, and is all the better for it. The sad truth that parasites, such as Keating and Toohey, strive to control man, which leads both men to misery and eventual ruin. Keating living in his worse nightmare, alone, and exposed as a fraud. Toohey, on the other hand, continues to appear happy to the general public, but silently fights the knowledge that he will never be a creator. In the end the message is clear, to be a creator is to rise above society and evolve nature, without concern for the group pattern. The parasite, however, attempts to rule men, but ends up being prisoner to them. The path Roark followed required strength of character, drive, and endurance that few posses, but if one can survive going against the grain, they can discover true happiness.