A
picaresque novel is a form of fiction dealing with the adventures of rogues and vagabonds.In it, the structure is loose
and rambling.The situations created by the writer are portrayed as episodes occuring at random and usually there is no logical pattern.The hero of a
Picaresque novel is a wanderer from job to job, place to place and from master to master.The characterization is static.The main theme of a Picaresque novel is an individual's struggle against a hostile society.The main aim of a Picaresque writer is to mix comedy with truth and to shed light on the darker areas of society with the rays of satire.The hero is forced to leave his home to find means to live on.Therefore he criticizes the corrupt society.
The Picaresque form actually originated in Spain.They were actually satires on idealistic characters, virtues,chivalry and night-errandry.They were used to highlight the ugly and the absurd of the society.They were anbti-
romantic ans realistic.
In Huckleburry Finn,there are a lot of traits of a Picaresque novel.It can be added to the category of Cervantes's Don Quixote and Fielding's Tom Jhones.In Huckleburry Finn, Huck, the orphan who sleeps in the hogshed and shuns the ways of respectability and conventionality is the central figure of thhe novel.Both the boys Huck and Finn are forced to leave their homes, one to escape from slavery and the other to escape from the corrupting influences of civilization.
Love and Cruelty are the twin themes in the novel.There is a linear simplicity in the novel which is the main trait of a picaresque novel.There is a beginning, middle and an end.There is a neat incorporation of comedy and tragedy in the novel.The novel has many episodes which are loosely printed together.It incorporates the elements of fantasy and romance.There is a denunciation of romantic absurdity also.Thus throogh the medieval romantic scenes Twain here satirizes an entitre society and its evils.Thus Huckleburry Finn can be treated as a Picaresque novel.