Essay/Term paper: Adventures of huckleberry finn

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Huckleberry Finn

In Mark Twain's novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry

Finn, Twain develops the plot into Huck and Jim's

adventures allowing him to weave in his criticism of society.

The two main characters, Huck and Jim, both run from

social injustice and both are distrustful of the civilization

around them. Huck is considered an uneducated backwards

boy, constantly under pressure to conform to the

"humanized" surroundings of society. Jim a slave, is not even

considered as a real person, but as property. As they run

from civilization and are on the river, they ponder the social

injustices forced upon them when they are on land. These

social injustices are even more evident when Huck and Jim

have to make landfall, and this provides Twain with the

chance to satirize the socially correct injustices that Huck

and Jim encounter on land. The satire that Twain uses to

expose the hypocrisy, racism, greed and injustice of society

develops along with the adventures that Huck and Jim have.

The ugly reflection of society we see should make us

question the world we live in, and only the journey down the

river provides us with that chance. Throughout the book we

see the hypocrisy of society. The first character we come

across with that trait is Miss Watson. Miss Watson

constantly corrects Huck for his unacceptable behavior, but

Huck doesn't understand why, "That is just the way with

some people. They get down on a thing when they don't

know nothing about it" (2). Later when Miss Watson tries to

teach Huck about Heaven, he decides against trying to go

there, "...she was going to live so as to go the good place.

Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was

going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it." (3) The

comments made by Huck clearly show Miss Watson as a

hypocrite, scolding Huck for wanting to smoke and then

using snuff herself and firmly believing that she would be in

heaven. When Huck encounters the Grangerfords and

Shepardsons, Huck describes Colonel Grangerford as, "...a

gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all over; and so

was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and that's

worth as much in a man as it is in a horse..." (104). You can

almost hear the sarcasm from Twain in Huck's description of

Colonel Grangerford. Later Huck is becoming aware of the

hypocrisy of the family and its feud with the Shepardsons

when Huck attends church. He is amazed that while the

minister preaches about brotherly love both the

Grangerfords and Shepardsons are carrying weapons.

Finally when the feud erupts into a gunfight, Huck sits in a

tree, disgusted by the waste and cruelty of the feud, "It made

me so sick I most fell out of the tree...I wished I hadn't ever

come ashore that night to see such things." Nowhere else is

Twain's voice heard more clearly than as a mob gathers at

the house of Colonel Sherburn to lynch him. Here we hear

the full force of Twain's thoughts on the hypocrisy an

cowardice of society, "The idea of you lynching anybody!

It's amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough

to lynch a man!...The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what

an army is- a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born

in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass,

and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the

head of it is beneath pitifulness" (146-147). Each of these

examples finds Huck again running to freedom of the river.

The river never cares how saintly you are, how rich you are,

or what society thinks you are. The river allows Huck the

one thing that Huck wants to be, and that is Huck. The river

is freedom than the land is oppression, and that oppression is

no more evident than it is to Jim. It is somewhat surprising

that Huck's traveling companion is Jim. As anti-society that

Huck is, you would think that he would have no qualms

about helping Jim. But Huck has to have feelings that slavery

is correct so we can see the ignorance of racial bigotry.

Huck and Jim's journey begins as Huck fights within himself

about turning Jim over to the authorities. Finally he decides

not to turn Jim in. This is a monumental decision for Huck to

make, even though he makes it on the spot. This is not just a

boy running away from home. It is someone who has

decided to turn his back on everything "home" stands for,

even one of its most cherished beliefs. In this way Twain also

allows to let us leave our thoughts of bigotry behind also and

start to see Jim for who he really is, a man. Even though

Huck has made his decision about Jim, early in the voyage

we see Huck's attitude towards Jim as racist. Eventually

Huck plays a mean trick on Jim and we see Huck begin to

change his attitude, "It was fifteen minutes before I could

work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I

done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterward, neither"

(86). Later on in the story Huck becomes very caring and

protective for Jim, where this reaches a climax at the point

where Huck saves Jim from two slave catchers by tricking

them to think Jim is was Huck's small pox ridden father. The

dialogue between Huck and Jim also illustrates that Jim is

more than someone's property. He is a human being with

feelings, and hopes for a better future. He is not some

ignorant, uncaring sub-human, but plainly the opposite.

Twain does not necessarily come out and say that slavery is

evil, that is far above Huck's understanding, but he gives us

the ammunition needed to make that decision for ourselves.

Huck and Jim's adventures give us a chance to examine the

society they live in. It also gives us a chance to examine

ourselves as well as the society today. The story is over a

hundred years old, but many of the social vices then, sadly,

pertain to our society now. There are more examples of

human failings in this book, the trickery and cheating of the

King and Duke, the lack of caring by the townspeople for

Boggs, the naiveté of the Wilks sisters and the lack of

common sense in Tom Sawyer. There is cruelty, greed,

murder, trickery, hypocrisy, racism, and a general lack of

morality, all the ingredients of society. All through the

adventure you have Huck Finn and Jim trying to find the one

thing they can only find on the river, freedom, but a person

can only stay on the river for so long, and so you have to go

on land to face the injustices of society. Quite a contrast, the

freedom of being without authority, being able to think for

yourself, running right next to the constraints made upon you

by society. Somewhere deep within the story Twain is

making a powerful statement, a wish for all humanity, that we

can be brave enough to break with what others assume is

correct and just, and make decisions for ourselves and the

ability to stand on our own and do something about it. We

are that mob that stood outside Colonel Sherburn's house,

we are the Grangerfords and Shepardsons, and we are the

King and the Duke, and even the foolish townspeople in

every town they conned. Somewhere along the line we must

become I, someone has to have the courage to stand up for

what is right, to be what Colonel Sherburn would call a real

man. Huck gives us that chance, that ability to see things for

what they are. His adventures along with Twain's sharp

criticism are so uniquely combined to give us that realization.

The greatest thing is that it is done so well that we almost

think that we are the ones that discovered it.