From the Mayflower pilgrims to the immigrants of the 19th and 20th centuries people have been flocking to the United States of America. Some of them were searching for a chance to practice their own religion and some were on the lookout for a chance to start their lives over again. One common theme between all of these people has been the quest for freedom. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain epitomizes this search for freedom more than any other writer in American history did before. It came out during a very volatile time in our country’s past, the civil war had just ended, and racial tensions were still high. All of the major themes in the story including differences in education, the concept of brotherhood, tensions made by racism, a boy coming of age through courage, authority, innocence of youth, and social divide made by class differences are all linked together by the one thing that brought our country together, yet divided it so much, the quest for freedom. Any writer, since this novel’s inception, has been influenced by this basic American fact and by Mark Twain’s story exemplified this more than any other novel before it.