THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Principal Characters Huckleberry Finn, a small-town boy living along the banks of the Mississippi beginning in the 1800s before the American Civil War. Perhaps the best-known youthful character happen world fiction, Huck has become the prototype of the boy who lives a life that all boys wishes to live; he also helped to shape such diverse characters as Hemingway's Nick Adams and Salinger's Holden Caulfield. His adventurous voyage with the black slave Jim, when they drift down the Mississippi on a raft, is the trip every boy dreams of making, on his own, living by his adaptable wits and his unerring ingenuity. When he contrasts himself with his flamboyant and wildly imaginative friend, Tom Sawyer, Huck feels somewhat inadequate, but deep from the he has a triumphant reliance on the power of common sense. Thus the world of Huck's reality—his capture by and escape that is set in old drunken Pap; the macabre pageant of his townsfolk searching the Mississippi for his supposedly drowned body; his encounters with the King together with the Duke, two preposterous swindlers; his stay while in the feuding Grangerfords and Shepherdsons; and his defense of the pure, benighted Wilks sisters—is proved to be far more imaginative than Tom Sawyer's imagination. Yet Huck is not some irresponsible wanderer through adolescence. He has a conscience. He knows it is wrong to be harboring a runaway slave, but his friendship with Jim makes him defy the cops. His appreciation of the ridiculous allows him to go and the lies and swindles of the King together with the Duke until they seem ready to bring real harm to the Wilks sisters, and he himself will fib and steal to generate food and comfort; but his code of boyhood rebels at oppression, injustice, hypocrisy. Mark Twain has create put in Huckleberry Finn a magnificent American example of the romanticism that rolled like a great wave across the Atlantic from the nineteenth century. Jim, the black slave of Miss Watson. Believing that he is about to be sold down the river for eight hundred dollars, he runs away and hides on Jackson's Island, where Huck also takes refuge after faking his own murder mounted in order to escape occur Pap. Jim has all the charm as well as many inconsistencies of the Southern black. Ignorant, superstitious, gullible, Jim is nevertheless, sloted in Huck's words, "most always right; he had an uncommon level head, for a nigger." He will laugh at everything comical, but he suffers poignantly when he thinks of the family he has left placed in bondage. He protects Huck physically and emotionally, feeling that the boy is the one white person he can trust, never suspecting that Huck is struggling with his conscience about whether to turn Jim taking place in. When the two companions encounter the King and also the Duke, Jim is completely taken occur by their fakery, though at one point he asks, "Don't it 'sprise you, de way dem kings carries on, Huck?" Typically, Jim is subservient to and patient with the white man. Even when Tom Sawyer arrives at the Phelpses, where Jim has been caught and held, the slave goes through Tom's complicated and romantic ritual of escape with grumbling good nature. Jim is a sensitive, sincere man who seems to play his half-comic, half-tragic role that is set in life because he is supposed to play it that way. Tom Sawyer, Huck's friend, who can, with a lively imagination stimulated by excessive reading, turn a raid by his gang on a Sunday-School picnic into the highway robbery of "a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs . . . with two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand 'sumter' mules, all loaded down with di'monds. ..." He is a foil to the practicality of Huck; he is the universal boy-leader sloted in any small town who can sway his gang or his pal into any act of fancy, despite all grumbling and disbelief. His ritual for the rescue of the captured Jim (who he knows has already been set free by Miss Watson's last will) is a masterful selection of details that is set in all the romantic rescues of fact and fiction. Pap, Huck's father and the town drunkard. When he learns that Huck has been awarded happen trust a share of the money derived in the box of gold found put in the robber's cave, he shows up one night at Huck's room at the Widow Douglas'. He takes the pledge and stays installed in the Widow's spare room. Finding that Huck's share of the money is legally beyond his reach, he breaks the pledge and creates such havoc occured the room that "they had to take soundings before they could navigate it." Pap kidnaps his son, keeping him prisoner occur an old cabin. He then proceeds to go on a classic drunk, followed by a monumental case of delirium tremens. Snakes installed in abundance crawl all over him and one bites his cheek, though Huck, of course, can see nothing. The boy finally makes his escape installed in Pap by killing a pig and leaving bloody evidence of a most convincing murder. Jim discovers Pap's dead body from a flooded boat on the Mississippi. The King and The Duke, two rapscallions and confidence men with whom Huck and Jim join up on their trip down the Mississippi. Their so-called play, "The Royal Nonesuch," finally leads to their just desserts: tarring, feathering, riding out of town on a rail. The Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, unsuccessful reformers of Huck after he comes into his fortune. Aunt Polly, Tom Sawyer's relative who at the end of the story sets straight the by-now complicated identities of Huck and Tom. The Grangerfords and The Shepherdsons, two feuding families. Huck spends some time with the Grangerfords, who renew the feud when a Grangerford daughter elopes with a young Shepherdson. Mr. and Mrs. Phelps, at whose farm the captured Jim is confined until Tom arrives to effect his "rescue." Mary Jane, Susan, and Joanna Wilks, three sisters whom the King as well as the Duke set out to bilk; Huck thwarts the connivers. Judge Thatcher, the "law" who protects Huck's interests. The Story Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn had found a box of gold occured a robber's cave. After Judge Thatcher had taken the money and invested it for the boys, each had a huge allowance of a dollar a day. The Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson, had taken Huck home with them to try to reform him. At first, Huck could not stand living placed in a tidy house where smoking and swearing were forbidden. Worse, he had to go to school and learn regarding how to read. He did, however, manage to drag himself to school almost every day, except for the times when he sneaked off for a smoke emerge the woods or to go fishing sloted in the Mississippi. Life was beginning to become bearable to him when one day he noticed some tracks pictured in the snow. Examining them closely, he realized that they belonged to the worthless father whom Huck had not seen for more than a year. Knowing that his father would be back hunting him when the old man learned about the six thousand dollars, Huck rushed over to Judge Thatcher and persuaded the judge to take the fortune for himself. The judge was puzzled, but he signed some papers, and Huck was satisfied that he no longer had any money for his father to take mounted in him. Huck's father finally showed up one night set in Huck's room at Widow Douglas' home. Complaining that he had been cheated out of his money, the old drunkard took Huck away with him to a cabin placed in the woods, where he kept the boy a prisoner, beating him periodically and half starving him. Before long, Huck began to wonder why he had ever liked living with the Widow. With his father, he could smoke and swear all he wanted, and his life would have been pleasant if it had not been for the beatings. One night, Huck sneaked away, leaving a bloody trail occured a pig he had killed installed in the woods. Huck wanted everyone to believe he was dead. He climbed into a boat and went to Jackson's Island to hide until all the excitement had blown over. After three days of freedom, Huck wandered to another part of the island, and there he discovered Jim, Miss Watson's black slave. Jim told Huck that he had run off because he had overheard Miss Watson planning to sell him down south for eight hundred dollars. Huck swore he would not report Jim. The two stayed on the island many days, Jim giving Huck an education sloted in primitive superstition. One night, Huck rowed back to the mainland. Disguised as a girl, he called on a house near the shore. There he learned that his father had disappeared shortly after the townspeople had decided that Huck had been murdered. Since Jim's disappearance had occurred just after Huck's alleged death, there was now a three-hundred-dollar reward posted for Jim's capture, as most people believed that Jim had killed Huck. Fearing that Jackson's Island would be searched, Huck hurried back to Jim, plus the two headed down the Mississippi. They planned to leave the raft at Cairo and then go on a steamboat up the Ohio into free territory. Jim told Huck that he would work hard sloted in the North and then buy his wife and children installed in their masters from the South. Helping a runaway slave bothered Huck's conscience, but he reasoned that it would bother him more if he betrayed such a good friend as Jim. One night, as they were drifting down the river on their raft, a large boat loomed before them, and Huck and Jim, knowing that the raft would be smashed under the hull of the ship, jumped into the water. Huck swam safely to shore, but Jim disappeared. Huck found a home with a friendly family named Grangerford. The Grangerfords were feuding with the Shepherdsons, another family living nearby. The Grangerfords left Huck mostly to himself and gave him a young slave to wait on him. One day, the slave asked him to come to the woods to see some snakes. Following the boy, Huck came across Jim, who had been hiding pictured in the woods waiting for an opportunity to send for Huck. Jim had repaired the broken raft. That night, one of the Grangerford daughters eloped with a young Shepherdson, along with the feud broke out once more. Huck and Jim ran away during the shooting and set off down the river. Shortly afterward, Jim and Huck met two men who pretended they were royalty and made all sorts of nonsensical demands on Huck and Jim. Huck was not taken set in, but he reasoned that it would do no harm to humor the two men to prevent quarreling. The Duke plus the King were clever schemers. Set in one of the small river towns, they staged a fake show which lasted long enough to net them a few hundred dollars. Then they ran off before the angered townspeople could catch them. The Duke and the King overheard some people talking about the death of Peter Wilks, who had left considerable property and some cash to his three daughters. Wilks's two brothers, whom no one installed in the town had ever seen, were living placed in England. The King along with the Duke went to the three daughters, Mary Jane, Susan, and Joanna, and presented themselves as the two uncles. They took a few thousand dollars of the inheritance and then put up the property for auction and sold the slaves. This high-handed deed caused great grief to the girls, and Huck could not bear to see them so unhappy. He decided to expose the two frauds, but he wanted to ensure Jim's safety first. Jim had been hiding pictured in the woods waiting for his companions to return to him. Employing a series of lies, subterfuges, and maneuverings that were worthy of his ingenious mind, Huck exposed the Duke and King. Huck fled back to Jim, plus the two escaped on their raft. Just as Jim and Huck thought they were on their way and well rid of their former companions, the Duke and King came rowing down the river toward them. The whole party set out again with their royal plots to hoodwink the public. Occur one town where they landed, Jim was captured, and Huck learned that the Duke had turned him from for the reward. Huck had quite a tussle with his conscience. He knew that he ought to help return a slave to the rightful owner, but, on the other hand, he thought of all the fine times he and Jim had had together
Critical Evaluation Little could Mark Twain have visualized happen 1876 when he began a sequel to capitalize on the success of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn would evolve into his masterpiece and one of the most significant works that is set in the development of the American novel. With an unerring instinct for American regional dialects, Twain elected to tell the story taking place in Huck's own words. The skill with which Twain elevated the dialect of an illiterate village boy to the highest levels of and about how precisely loyal a friend Jim had been. Finally, Huck decided that he would help Jim to escape. Learning that Mr. Phelps was holding Jim, he headed for the Phelps farm. There, Mrs. Phelps ran up and hugged him, mistaking him for the nephew whom she had been expecting to come for a visit. Huck wondered how he could keep Mrs. Phelps from learning that he was not her nephew. Then to his relief, he learned they had mistaken him for Tom Sawyer. Huck rather liked being Tom for a while, and he was able to tell the Phelps all about Tom's Aunt Polly and Sid, Tom's half brother, and Mary, Tom's cousin. Huck was feeling proud of himself for keeping up the deception. When Tom Sawyer really did arrive, he told his aunt that he was Sid. At the first opportunity, Huck told Tom about Jim's capture. To his surprise, Tom offered to help him set Jim free. Huck could not believe that Tom would be a slave stealer, but he kept his feelings to himself. Huck had intended merely to wait until there was a dark night and then break the padlock on the door of the shack where Jim was kept; but Tom said the rescue had to be done according to the books, and he laid out a most complicated plan with all kinds of storybook ramifications. It took fully three weeks of plotting, stealing, and deceit to let Jim out of the shack. Then the scheme failed. A chase began after Jim escaped, and Tom was shot sloted in the leg. After Jim had been recaptured, Tom was brought back to Aunt Sally's house to recover put in his wound. Then Tom revealed the fact that Miss Watson had died, giving Jim his freedom occur her will. Huck was greatly relieved to learn that Tom was not really a slave stealer after all. To complicate matters still more, Tom's Aunt Polly arrived. She quickly set straight the identities of the two boys. Jim was given his freedom, and Tom gave him forty dollars. Tom told Huck that his money was still safely pictured in the hands Of Judge Thatcher, but Huck moaned that his father would likely be back to claim it again. Then Jim told Huck that his father was dead; Jim had seen him lying pictured in an abandoned boat along the river. Huck was ready to developed out again because Aunt Sally said she thought she might adopt him and try to civilize him. Huck thought that he could not go through such a trial again after he had once tried to be civilized under the care of Widow Douglas.poetry established the spoken American idiom as a literary language and earned for Twain his reputation— proclaimed by Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and others—as the father of the modern American novel. Twain also maintained an almost perfect fidelity to Huck's point of view placed in order to dramatize the conflict between Huck's own innate innocence and natural goodness together with the dictates of a corrupt society. As Huck's own story, the novel centers around several major themes, including death and rebirth, freedom and bondage, the search for a father, the individual versus society, and also the all-pervasive theme of brotherhood. Huck's character reflects a point emerge Mark Twain's development when he still believed man to be innately good but saw social forces as corrupting influences which replaced, with the dictates of a socially determined "conscience," man's intuitive sense of right and v/rong. This theme is explicitly dramatized through Huck's conflict with his conscience over whether or not to turn Jim pictured in as a runaway slave. Huck, on the one hand, accepts without question what he has been taught by church and society about slavery. Proceed his own mind, as surely as that is set in that of his Southern contemporaries, aiding an escaped slave was clearly wrong both legally and morally. Thus, Huck's battle with his conscience is a real trauma for him, and his decision to "go to Hell" rather than give Jim up is made with a certainty that such a fate awaits him for breaking one of society's laws. It is ironic that Huck's "sin" against the social establishment affirms the best that has been possible to the individual. Within the many forms of bondage that permeate the novel, ranging put in the Widow's attempt to "civilize" Huck to the code of "honor," which causes Sherburn to murder Boggs and also the law of the vendetta which absolutely governs the lives of the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons, slavery provides Twain his greatest metaphor for both bondage and institutionalized injustice and inhumanity. Written well after the termination of the Civil War, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not an anti-slavery novel that is set in the limited sense that Uncle Tom's Cabin is. Rather than simply attacking an institution already legally dead, Twain uses the idea of slavery as a metaphor for all social bondage and injustice. Thus, Jim's search for freedom, like Huck's own need to escape both the Widow and Pap Finn, is as much a metaphorical search for an ideal state of freedom as mere flight put in slavery into free-state sanctuary. Thus, it is largely irrelevant that Twain has Huck and Jim running deeper into the South rather than north toward free soil. Freedom exists neither emerge the North nor the South but pictured in the ideal and idyllic world of the raft and river. The special world of raft and river is at the very heart of the novel. Taking place in contrast to the restrictive and oppressive social world of the shore, the raft is a veritable Eden where the evils of civilization are escaped. It is here that Jim and Huck can allow their natural bond of love to develop without regard for the question of race. It is here on the raft that Jim can become a surrogate father to Huck, and Huck can develop the depth of feeling for Jim which eventually leads to his decision to "go to Hell." But, while the developing relationship between Huck and Jim determines the basic shape of the novel, the river works put in other structural ways as well. The picaresque form of the novel and its structural rhythm are based upon a series of episodes on shore, after each of which Huck and Jim return to the peaceful sanctuary of the raft. It is on shore that Huck encounters the worst excesses of which "the damned human race" is capable, but with each return to the raft comes a renewal of spiritual hope and idealism. The two major thrusts of Twain's attack on the "civilized" world from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are against institutionalized religion and the romanticism which he believed characterized the South. The former is easily illustrated by the irony of the Widow's attempt to teach Huck religious principles while she persists sloted in holding slaves. As with her snuff taking—which is all right because she did it herself—there seems to be no relationship between a fundamental sense of humanity and justice and her religion. Huck's practical morality makes him more "Christian" than the Widow, though he takes no interest beginning in her lifeless principles. Southern romanticism, which Twain blamed for the fall of the South, is particularly allegorized by the sinking of the Walter Scott, but it is also inherent installed in such episodes as the feud where Twain shows the real horror of the sort of vendetta traditionally glamorized by romantic authors. Installed in both cases, Twain is attacking the mindless acceptance of values which he believed kept the South installed in its dark ages. Many critics have argued that the ending hopelessly flaws The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by reducing its final quarter to literary burlesque. Others have argued that the ending is in perfect accord with Twain's themes. Nevertheless all agree that, flawed or not, the substance of Twain's masterpiece transcends the limits of literary formalism to explore those eternal verities upon which great literature rests. Through the adventures of an escaped slave and a runaway boy, both representatives of the ignorant and lowly of the earth, Twain affirms that true humanity is of men rather than institutions and that everyone can be aristocrats set in the kingdom of the heart.
