In Mark Twains novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn he talks about small town life in Southern Mississippi. He portrays it as gossipy, a place where everyone knows everyone and knows everyone elses business and doesnt care to tell it. It is confining to Huck and Jim because there is too much conforming to society. This is why they escape In Chapter 18 when Huck goes into town dressed as a girl to get information he talks to a woman who has only lived there two weeks. She is able to tell him everything hat is going on despite this.
This shows how in small towns people arent afraid to talk. Not only did the woman freely give all the information to someone she didnt know, someone had to tell her all about it in a two week tome span. Twain is depicting small towns in a gossipy manner, Twain is also characterizing small towns as confining with a lot of conformation to society. When Huck goes to live with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, they try to turn him into someone hes not. They dress him up in fancy lothes, try to teach him religion and try to take away all of his individuality.
They do this because this is what the society in their small town accepts, and they dont want him to be different than anyone else, because how would that make them look. Huck however, escapes their attempts to Twain shows that he has some contempt for small town life and its behaviors. Miss Watson is one of the main people to show this because of her trying to change Huck. Twain attempts to demonstrate this by portraying small town life and gossipy and confining.
