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In spite of the fact that in Huck Finn, Huck Finn spends very little time in school, Huck Finn’s main theme is still about education. Jenny’s got the scoop on Mark Twain’s message-just give her 60 seconds of your time.

Video Transcription:

Out of the 450 pages in this novel, Huck only spends about 35 of them in school. And even then, let’s just say that his attendance wouldn’t earn him any awards. So how is this novel’s central theme about education? Let’s take a look.

When we first meet Huck, he’s uneducated, ill-bred, and pretty skeptical of the society around him. Just think of Huck’s take on religion in Chapter 3:

“I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork?”

Fair question, right? And it’s one of many that Huck asks about commonly-accepted religious, cultural, and moral beliefs throughout the course of this story.

Huck’s distrust of society, in combination with his developing relationship with Jim, lead him to especially question racism and slavery. And on his raft, without society’s rules to tell him what to think, Huck is able to educate himself—to come to his own conclusions about what’s right and wrong based on his experiences and his conscience.

And rather than lead him astray, by the end of the novel, Huck’s self-education has taught him more about the world—and about himself—than anything a book, or society, could offer.

Call Twain’s theme the need for education that champions free thought and open-mindedness above all.