Pre Cvil War Southern Society

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 11th grade February 2008

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In 1888 Mark Twain published the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Basing the book on pre-Civil War southern America, he wrote in the dialect that the people used and showed the way of life that was there. He showed the good and bad of southern society, and what they were aware and ignorant of. He showed the social status of the south, all the way from the plantation owners who owned the vast majority of slaves, to the slave hunters who made their living off of capturing runaway slaves. He depicted how southerners felt about several things like church, abolitionists, free black people, the strength of family, and also where every person, race and gender stood in a typical southern household and society. He effectively and factually showed how southern life was in general.

In the South, the majority of people did not own slaves or have plantations; only about two percent of people did, these people where known as Aristocrats, the richest part of southern society.

One family in this social status is the Grangerfords, who took Huck in when his raft was hit by a steamboat on the Mississippi River. At first when they hear Huck outside, they are extremely cautious because they think he might be a member of the rival family the Shepardsons. After searching him for weapons and questioning him for a while, they kindly take him in. They are a extremely generous family: letting him stay as long as he wants, giving him clothes and food, and even his own private slave for when he is staying with them. Family feuds were not uncommon in southern society, and the Grangerfords and the Shepardsons had a long going and seemingly unending one. Huck learns about the family members murdered on both sides, and is...