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So, both these novels will be discussed and compared in the context of the American Southern literature and its characteristics, particularly through the key themes and symbols of racism and female subjugation, and how it reflected the society of those times. Southern literature refers to the American literature which is about the Southern part of the United States or written by writers from that region and so it will reflect certain similar characteristics. “Southern literature announces the conjunction of the US South and an expressive art — texts identified as belonging to a particular history, social organization, and cultural imaginary” (MacKethan).

Some of the characteristics of Southern literature are slavery, relationship between man and nature, religious fervor, a sense of justice, female subjugation, and many more. When one focuses on Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is evident that the novel featured many of the above characteristics with many readers and critics considering it to be the most influential Southern novel of the nineteenth century because of its frank dealing of the above aspects particularly racism and religion.

This novel deals with the adventurous journey undertaken by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn and Jim along the Mississippi River. The novel is told in an episodic structure, with new characters entering and leaving the story, even as the two lead characters experience different and intricate facets of racism. On the other hand, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is about the life and times of Janie Crawford, a middle-aged African woman. When she returns to her hometown of Eatonville, Florida, after a long gap, she goes down on the memory lane by talking to her friend Pheoby Watson.

She talks about her life and how men in her life brought out certain traits, particularly her wish to live a life on her own terms,