FREE ESSAY ON HUCKLEBERRY FINN

HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Mark Twain
The esteemed, American author, Samuel L. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, was born in
Florida, Missouri in 1835 and passed away on April 21, 1910. In 1864 Samuel Clemens
adopted the pen name "Mark Twain," which is a river pilot's phrase that means two fathoms
deep. When Mark was younger he loved to travel, indulging an irrepressible spirit of
adventure. Plumbing his exciting life experiences, Mark Twain created the characters and
plots of books which have become classic American Novels.
The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain tells the story of an adolescent boy
travelling down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave. Huck has staged his death in
order to escape his abusive, drunken father and hooks up with his foster mother's escaped
slave. During the adventurous journey Huck discovers many problems with society and
civilization as he encounters a variety of individuals, each of whom represent a
different problem with the current social order. The pair gets caught up in various
ordeals involving the people they encounter. The running theme throughout the book is
Huck Finn's continuing struggle with his conscience concerning his relationship with the
runaway slave, Jim, who has grown to be his friend and parent figure.
The plot of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn involves the adventures of Huck and Jim
who are on the run. Huck is escaping his drunkard father and Jim is avoiding his proposed
sale. Together they are rafting down the Mississippi River, away from civilization and
society. Huck has just recently come under the care of his Christian foster mother, the
Widow Douglas, who is working to undo his sinful ways and train him in a religious
lifestyle. Now, as Huck grows in friendship with the black slave Jim, and they become
mutual companions and guardians, he is faced with a moral dilemma. Should he betray Jim's
trust by turning him in to his rightful and legal owner or must he follow his gut feeling
that he must help Jim to achieve his personal goal to acquire his freedom, even if this
illegal cooperation and stealing of people's property sentences Huck to an eternity in
Hell. Huck thinks to himself, "I begun to get it through my head that he was most free
and who was to blame for it? Why me. …. What had poor Miss Watson done to
you… that you could treat her so mean?" Huck is filled with guilt and loses sleep
over worrying about what he has done. Huck has an opportunity in Chapter XVI to turn Jim
in to a bounty hunter but he cannot go through with it and rather saves Jim by lying to
the man to keep him at bay. Later, in chapter XXXI, Huck decides to write a letter to
Miss Watson, divulging the whereabouts of her slave and even informing her that he, Huck,
is not really dead. Although the process of writing the letter makes Huck feels cleansed
of sin, he realizes that Jim, being a good person and a true friend, deserves Huck's
loyalty. The moral decision is to help Jim to freedom, even if it means committing sin. "
I was a trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed
it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: 'All right,
then, I'll go to hell' " . From here on, Huck settles his struggle with his conscience.
The narrator and protagonist of the novel is Huckleberry Finn. It is evident that during
the course of the book Huck matures greatly. At the start of the book he is a juvenile
delinquent who likes to hang out with his fellow mischievous friends, especially Tom
Sawyer. He is wild and carefree, playing jokes on people and believing all his pranks to
be hilarious. Huck has recently moved in with his foster mother, the Widow Douglas, who
is instrumental in his partial reformation. Under her care Huck is learning good manners
and Christian teachings. Formal schooling is making Huck literate. Although Huck is
growing accustomed to his new environment, he still strains against its restrictions.
When Huck's drunken father returns to kidnap Huck and plot to steal his money, Huck is
forced to abandon his new family and society by staging his own death and escaping to
Jackson's Island and eventually down river. When his adventures grow to involve moral
questions never before raised, he is forced to confront his feelings and contemplate his
thoughts in order to formulate personally held views of right and wrong. Huck grows to
reject the values that society has tried to instil in him. Throughout the course of the
novel Huck matures as he meets a variety of people and lives a variety of adventures. He
learns how to deal with people and situations and comes to his own understandings. The
person who most helps Huck to mature is Jim. At the opening of the book Huck sees Jim as
only a lowly slave who possesses no sense or intelligence. However, Huck only thinks this
way because this is what society believes and what it teaches its adherents. As Huck gets
to know Jim better, he realizes that Jim is more than the stereotypical slave and
feelings of friendship and loyalty grow. Huck feels that it is his civil and Christian
duty to return Jim to his owner. Concurrently he realizes that Jim is an equal, a friend,
and a decent human being. In the end, Huck's personal values overrule those of larger
society. Huck accepts that, living within the parameters of Christian society, he will be
punished in the after-life for helping Jim to freedom. Nevertheless, it is a price he is
ready to pay in order to do what is, to his understanding, the right thing. Even though
Huck still plays jokes on people, he feels guilty about playing with their minds. For
example, when Huck gets separated from Jim in the fog, Huck tells Jim he dreamt the whole
horrible incident, and that Huck was there beside him the whole time. Once the truth
comes out, Jim responds by saying, " En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you could make
a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat ruck dah is trash; en trash is what people is dat puts
dirt on de head er dey fren's en makes 'em ashamed." Huck feels so ashamed that he
humbles himself and apologizes to Jim, an unheard of behaviour towards a black slave.
Still Huck says, "But I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither." Jim
helps Huck to learn decent values and human trust. The Duke and the King make Huck
realize that a life of thievery and con-artistry hurts other people. At the beginning of
the novel, Huck is excited at the prospect of stealing money from people, although these
antics are wholly in the imagination of Tom Sawyer. However, when the Duke and the King
try to steal the inheritance from the Wilk girls, Huck feels so guilty that he helps the
girls to keep their money. From Huck's short stay at the Grangefords', he learns the
strong emotions of hate, love, and sorrow. He also learns through the death of Buck, a
boy his own age, that life is fragile and feuds and vengeance are terrible things. All
the people and adventures that Huck encounters, help him to become the mature and
responsible young man he is at the end of the book.
In conclusion, the people and events that Huck contends with on his life journey, change
his life and the ways he understands life. At the beginning of the book, Huck is a rowdy,
young, southern boy who has very little respect for slaves or discipline, and thinks with
the "immortality of youth." By the end of the book, Huck respects humanity, black and
white, because of his friendship with Jim; he upholds human life because of his brushes
with death; he has an internalized set of moral values because he has seen the results of
moral and immoral lifestyles; and he feels responsible for his behaviour whether or not
it meshes with the mores of his milieu. He has matured significantly from the beginning
to the end of the novel.
Personal Response
Reading The Adventures of Hucklebery Finn has been a worthwhile experience. It introduced
me to a more mature and complex writing style. Huck's adventures and the diversity of the
people he meets make for a captivating plot. However, the societal attitudes toward black
slaves and the stereotyping of blacks as gullible, simple, and superstitious is
bothersome. The book also plays up the stupidity and narrow-mindedness of the 'civilized'
white people. Mark Twain's humour is witty and intelligent. 
Overall I think the process was very effective. Surprisingly, I had some difficulty
finding information on my book, but overall I found sufficient content. There was
adequate time to complete the ISP. The class work periods were useful for accomplishing
serious work. Overall I worked 28 hours and 10 minutes and my ISP contains 1310 words.
Bibliography
1.Beaver, Harold Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1987
2. Bloom, Harold, Mark Twain, Chelsea House Publishers, Broomwall, Pa, 2000
3. Claro, Joseph, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Barons Educational Series, Inc.,
Hauppauge, New York, 1984
4. Egan, Michael, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Chatto & Windus Ltd., London, 1977
5. Simpson, Claude M., Twentieth Century Interpretations of Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1968
6. Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn An Annotated Text Backrounds
and Sources Essays in Criticism, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1961
Other Sources
http://www.bellmore-merrick.k12.ny.us/huck.html
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http://www.novelguide.com/huckleberryfinn/themeanalysis.html
http://www.users.ntplx.net/`pfarris/essays/english.huck1.txt
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http://college-term-papers.com/TermPapers/Book_Reports/Huck_Finn_essay.shtml
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