There are many ways that Mark Twain illustrates religion through Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn is skeptical of religion but since he is superstitious, he attributes events that happen to him as the result of divine providence. The book is written in the late 1900s and the setting consists of small towns in Missouri along the Mississippi River. That area, frequently termed part of the Bible belt, has a reputation for its strict Christian religious beliefs where people take a literal approach to the bible. In other words, people believe at face value the words written in the Bible. Good and evil; heaven and hell are clearly defined. People during that time-period attended church regularly and looked down upon others who did not follow the all of the rules associated with the religion. Through Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain shows how he believes in morals than in a structured religion. The conflict of good and evil is a recurring theme throughout the book. For example in a conversation between Jim and Huck, Jim tries to explain that Huck’s father, who is often drunk and abusive, has two angels guiding him. One is white, representing goodness and one is black, representing evil. Jim tells Huck, that the “black angel messes up the white angel,” suggesting that the black angel causes Huck’s father to behave badly (Twain 1288). Huck’s father does not regularly practice religion however; he did have a cross-made with nail on his left boot heel to keep off the devil (1287). Twain shows this to be a contradictory because here is a man that treats Huck bad and yet he still parades around with the ultimate sin of goodness, a cross on his boot heel. In another instance, Huck touches a snakeskin during a flood and Jim tells Huck that touching a snakeskin is bad luck, suggesting that the snake represents the devil, which is evil. This proves to be true, because later Huck and Jim find a dead body, only to learn that it is Huck’s father (1308-1309). Mark Twain uses Huck’s father passing away as a sign