Huck Finn Essay, Research Paper
Plot Summary: Huck introduces himself as someone who appeared in an
earlierbook by Mark Twain, reminding us of what happened at the end ofthat story.
Though he won’t mention it until Chapter 3, hisirresponsible father has left him on his
own. Huck has beenliving with Widow Douglas, a kind woman who wants to teach
himall the things his father has neglected, the things all normalkids learn. He tells us
about Miss Watson, the widow’s sister, who isbent on teaching him manners and religion,
and about Tom Sawyer,a boy Huck looks up to because of his wide reading and
vividimagination. He’s also friendly with Jim, Miss Watson’s blackslave. Huck’s father
returns and takes him away from the widow.When his father begins beating him too
often, Huck runs away andmakes it look as though he’s been murdered. He hides out on
anearby island, intending to take off after his neighbors stopsearching for his body. Jim
is also hiding on the island, since he has run away fromMiss Watson, who was about to
sell him and separate him from hiswife and children. They decide to escape together,
and whenthey find a large raft, their journey along the MississippiRiver begins. After a
couple of adventures on the river, their raft is hitby a steamboat, and Huck and Jim are
separated. Huck goesashore and finds himself at the home of the Grangerfords,
whoallow him to come and live with them. At first he admires thesepeople for what he
thinks is their class and good taste. Butwhen he learns about the deaths caused by a feud
with anotherfamily, he becomes disgusted with them. By this time Jim has repaired the
raft, and Huck rejoins him.They’re soon joined by two men who are escaping the law and
whoclaim to be a duke and the son of the king of France. Huckknows they’re actually
small-time con men, but he pretends tobelieve them. After watching these frauds bilk
people of their money in twotowns, Huck is forced to help them try to swindle an
inheritanceout of three girls who were recently orphaned. He goes along atfirst because
he doesn’t want them to turn Jim in, buteventually he decides that the thieves have gone
too far. Heinvents a complicated plan to escape and to have themarrested. The plan
almost works, but at the last minute the two crooksshow up and continue to travel with
Huck and Jim. When alltheir money-making schemes begin to fail, they sell Jim to
afarmer in one of the towns they’re visiting. Huck learns aboutthis and decides to free his
friend. The farmer turns out to be Tom Sawyer’s uncle, and through amisunderstanding
he and his wife think Huck is Tom. When Tomhimself arrives, Huck brings him up to
date on what’s happening.Tom pretends to be his own brother Sid, and the two boys
setabout to rescue Jim. True to his imaginative style, Tom devises a plan that isinfinitely
more complicated than it has to be. Eventually theyactually pull it off and reach the raft
without being caught.Tom, however, has been shot in the leg, and Jim refuses to
leaveuntil the wound has been treated. The result is that Jim is recaptured and Tom and
Huck have toexplain what they’ve done. Tom, it turns out, knew all alongthat Miss
Watson had set Jim free in her will, so everyone cannow return home together. Huck,
however, thinks he’s had enoughof civilization, and hints that he might take off for the
IndianTerritory instead of going back home. Huck tells us about several people who live
in his town, andhe meets many more on his river voyage. You’ll find comments on these
characters as Huck introduces them. For an idea inadvance of who the main characters
are, the following sketcheswill be helpful.
Characters: HUCKLEBERRY FINN Huck is the son of the town drunkard, a man
who goes away forlong stretches and beats his son when he’s home. Huck cares
forhimself most of the time, though he’s living with a charitablewoman when the novel
begins. He prefers living in the woods tobeing in a home, and he doesn’t think much of
school, religioustraining, or being “sivilized” in general. When he’s in trouble, Huck can
be a first-class liar, butgenerally he’s honest, sensitive about other people’s feelings,and
kind. He sometimes has feelings of guilt over troubles hehasn’t caused, and he has a very
active and intrusiveconscience. Huck has an ambivalent attitude toward himself. On the
onehand, he keeps telling us that he knows he’s “low-down” and”ornery,” that he’s lacking
in all the things that make otherpeople respectable. On the other hand, he almost always
goeshis own way, makes up his own mind, and lives by his ownstandards. His negative
feelings about himself stem from his belief thatcertain qualities make people good–such
things as education,religious training, and a willingness to follow rules. He’sbeen taught
to equate these things with virtue, and the part ofhis mind that believes in the equation
tells him he doesn’tmeasure up. What he doesn’t realize, even at the end of the book, is
thatgoodness is an inner quality, and that it may have no connectionto the kind of
upbringing someone has had, or even to outwardbehavior. if Huck understood this point,
he’d be moreinterested in changing society than in running away from it.But because he
accepts what he’s been taught, he sees himself asan outsider and he would rather run
away. JIM Jim is a slave owned by Miss Watson, the sister of the womanwho’s caring
for Huck. He has a wife and small children, andthe threat of being separated from them
frightens him enough tomake him run away from his owner before she can sell him.
Jimis illiterate, superstitious, and afraid of unnamed forces,characteristics that are the
subject of some of the comedy inthe book. But he’s also tender, sensitive, loyal, and
capableof very deep feeling. In some scenes he seems more childishthan Huck; in others
he’s an adult for Huck to rely on. To some readers, Jim is the most interesting character
in thebook. He’s important to the plot because he gives Huck a reasonto travel on the
river, and his outlaw status makes it necessaryfor Huck to keep silent at times when he
wants to stop some kindof injustice. But Jim is more than a plot device. He’s alsothe
person who brings Huck to a series of important moraldecisions. Because Jim is much
more than a stereotypical slave, Huckdevelops a deep feeling of loyalty toward him. And
in spite ofJim’s simplicity, naivete, and childish superstitions, Twain isable to use him as
a vehicle for a powerful indictment of theinstitution of slavery. TOM SAWYER Tom is
a friend of Huck, a boy Huck admires for his widereading, unbridled imagination, and
flair. An expert atself-promotion, Tom appoints himself leader of a gang dedicatedto
robbing and killing. Unlike Huck, Tom is a dreamer, a weaver of fantastic talesand
grand schemes. Since most of his knowledge of the worldcomes from his reading of
romantic novels, he can be amusing andexasperating at the same time. He’s amusing
when he shows hisimperfect understanding of what he has read, and when he givesliteral
meaning to things that existed only in the imaginationof the people who wrote those
books. He’s exasperating whenbooks lead him to ignore the real world he lives in,
especiallywhen he forgets the people around him and allows his fantasiesto affect their
lives. Huck is as ambivalent about Tom as he is about himself. Onthe one hand, Huck
idolizes him. He sees Tom’s wide reading andvivid imagination as qualities that set Tom
far above himself,and he often mentions how Tom would have enjoyed someparticularly
difficult feat that he himself has just pulledoff. On the other hand, Huck has little
patience with fantasies,including Tom’s. Huck is interested in the concrete,
thehere-and-now, and he doesn’t have the faith necessary to engagein fantasies. He often
becomes annoyed with Tom’s daydreams,but he always goes along because he believes
that Tom is one ofhis betters.
Setting: The setting of Huckleberry Finn–a relatively short southernstretch of the
Mississippi River–is an area that Mark Twainknew as well as anyplace on earth. It
includes not only hishome town of Hannibal, Missouri, fictionalized as St.Petersburg, but
the river he loved as a boy and came to revereduring his days as a riverboat pilot. Many
people have said that the river is a character in thenovel, a living, powerful, even godlike
force that has as muchto do with what happens to Huck as any of the human charactershe
meets during the story. Huck himself encourages this kind ofcomment, since he reserves
his most touching language for hisdescriptions of the river. Even after a flood, even after
ariver accident that nearly destroys the raft, Huck never has anunkind word to say about
this “character.” But the river makes up only part of the book’s setting.There are also all
those towns and villages that Huck visits,and the people who live in them. These limbs
of civilization onthe body of the river give Huck–and Twain, of course–a chanceto
observe and comment on 19th-century American society. If Twain becomes poetic
when he’s writing about the river, hecan be vitriolic about the people who live near it.
Neither ofthese extremes alone would have resulted in a very satisfactorynovel, but
Twain is successful in playing one against the other.He can rail at the human race and
sing hymns to one of nature’sgreatest creations, and he can do it because of the
shiftingsetting, because Huck goes from river to town and back againthroughout the
novel.
Themes: “What is the book about?” can be a tricky question. The plotof almost
any novel can be summarized in a few sentences, butthose sentences might tell very little
about what goes on in thebook. Most good books are about dozens of things–plot,
severalcharacters, general setting, specific scenes, dialogue, symbols,description,
implication, and on and on. And when you get totalking about a book that has been read
and loved for more thana century, it’s almost impossible to nail down exactly what
it’sabout. Still, there are some general statements that can bemade about the book, each
of them at least partially true. It’s possible to read Huckleberry Finn with only one of
thesestatements in mind and still get a lot out of it. But yourreading will be more
satisfying if you can keep them all inmind. After you’ve read the novel, you can decide
for yourselfwhich of them come closest to saying what Huck Finn is reallyabout. Here
are some general statements about Huck Finn: 1. Huck Finn is an adventure book about
the escapades of aboy who has run away from home. The main character is
candid,trustworthy, and funny, and he offers us a boy’s-eye view of theinteresting
characters he meets during his trip. 2. Huck Finn is a novel about growing up. Huck
not onlyruns away from his father, he also undertakes to make it on hisown. Before he
can, he has to go through certain rites ofpassage, which will allow him to enter the adult
world. Helpinga slave to escape is one of these rites, since it forces Huck tomake
decisions about right and wrong, decisions that willdetermine the kind of adult he will
be. 3. Huck Finn is a satire of the American South in the 19thcentury. Slavery is its
main target, but it attacks many humantraits and institutions. As likable as he is, even
Huck is theobject of satire, especially his attitude toward blacks. 4. Huck Finn is an
allegory about God and man. TheMississippi River is a god that provides both beauty
and terror.Huck represents mankind’s need to retreat (at least from time totime) from the
real world and to take solace in the pleasures ofreligion. 5. Huck Finn is an allegory
about good and evil. Huckrepresents the forces of good, and most of the people he
meetsrepresent evil. Although he doesn’t win all his battles againstevil, he never gives in
to it. The ending of the book is apessimistic statement about man’s ability to overcome
evil.