THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, by Mark Twain, talks about the journey of Huckleberry Finn and Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim, across several states. Huckleberry Finn gets kidnapped by his drunk Pap but manages to fake his death and escape to Jackson’s Island. Jim also goes there, as he doesn’t want to be sold by Miss Watson and separated from his family. Jim wants to go to Cairo, a free area, so Huck volunteers to help him. They travel by raft across many areas and have many adventures. The king and the duke join the party, but Huck and Jim find them evil and selfish. One day, Huck finds Jim sold by the king and bought by the family of Silas Phelps. He manages to escape the king and the duke by saying that he was going to find Jim. Silas Phelps is actually the uncle of Tom Sawyer, and Huck and Tom work together to help Jim escape and become a free man.
In the novel, freedom is one of greatest desires and factors that caused all of the adventures to happen. Huck Finn and Jim’s great desire for freedom is what led to the invention of this novel and journey. Both Huck and Jim showed desire for freedom in this novel, but in different ways. Huck wants to get free from Widow Douglass because he hates the normal and educated life, but also wants to run away from Pap because of all of those cowhides. Without the want to run away from Widow Douglass’, Huck would have never ended up in Pap’s; without the want to run away from Pap’s, he would have never ended up in Jackson’s Island; and without ending up in Jackson’s Island, he would have never met Jim. Jim eavesdropped on Miss Watson and heard that she wanted to sell Jim for eight hundred dollars. Jim wanted to be free and with his family, so he ran to Jackson’s Island too. The desire of freedom from both Huck and Jim were key factors that started the whole journey and adventures between them. In other words, without either Huck or Jim’s want for freedom, this journey would never have occurred. Huck and Jim’s desire and crave for freedom were important factors that contributed to the occurring of the adventures.
The slavery system is part of common logic in the area and time Huck lived in: negroes (African and Americans) are always slaves. Here, negroes like Jim work for white townspeople without pay and aren’t normally treated like a normal human being. Huck is pulled up and down, trying to make a hard decision in the novel. He thinks about whether to help Jim escape from his owner to prevent him from being sold, or to help his owner (Miss Watson) instead and catch him. Helping Jim at that time and area is just like helping a thief who stole someone’s belongings to escape now. However, Huck thought about how kind and nice Jim was to him all that time. Jim helped him find a place to stay, built a wigwam for them to sleep in, gave him the better bed, found him food to eat, and made himself stay up all night guarding to raft so that Huck can sleep. Jim was Huck’s best companion and friend at that time, so Huck not only felt guilty for helping Jim but also for attempting to expose Jim. Later on, Huck’s half of helping Jim overcame his half of exposing Jim, and while writing a letter to Miss Watson about Jim, he thinks about all the kindness Jim gave to him and ripped the letter. Huck had internal problems circling the slavery system, in which whether to help Jim escape or not.
Religion takes a big part in the story and shows the big difference between the negroes (niggers) and white townspeople. The situation that highlighted this factor clearly shows the mistreatment of African American slaves. At the beginning of the journey, Huck and Jim find the wrecked ship and the books inside them, and Huck started telling Jim about one of the books he read. Huck reads to Jim about kings and noblemen and how kings would go to war but get everything they want and go the the harem where they keep their million wives. Because of Jim always getting ‘stubborn’, Huck would call Jim ‘an uncommon level head for a black person’ and a load of other mean things. Huck was actually all right about the kings and noblemen and King Solomon and his million wives around the harem. He was of course, educated, as he was one of the white townspeople. However, Jim was a nigger, and was uneducated. This leads into the main difference of different people with different religions. Normal townspeople like Huck had everything they could want and were greatly educated; while niggers like Jim worked for people and had clearly no time and no right to be educated. By the middle near end of the story, Huck prays for his struggle of helping Jim. Religion shows the main background of the two main characters of the story and what makes them different.
Huck grows up and changes his personality and beliefs at the same time; in his journey and adventures, he grows up. Before and at the very start of his journey, Huck had thought very differently from his beliefs (especially towards Jim). At the beginning of his adventures Huck thought that the slavery system was correct, and it was the law. He was a follower of internal morals. Internal morals are laws or rules made by the ruler of the area in which citizens must obey to. At that time, the slavery system was a strict law. When Huck just met Jim, he didn’t treat him seriously and just treated Jim like a ‘thing’, not a normal human being with feelings. When Huck and Jim were separated on the raft by the first fog and Huck found Jim sleeping again, Huck pranked Jim and acted like nothing happened and Jim was only asleep. But when Huck told him the truth, Jim was sad and said that he was so worried about Huck. But near the end of the journey, Huck decided to help Jim because he was so nice to him, no matter if Huck broke the law or not. Another way Huck grows up is that he know knows the difference between good deeds and bad ones, and how to help victims of bad deeds, especially from the Duke and King. When the two charlatans were scamming the Wilks, Huck told Mary Jane about the frauds and how to expose them. Huck grows up after and during the journey and adventures in many ways.
The novel clearly showcases the different sides and many examples of human nature, and how often one can meet it. Human nature consists of two main sides: the bright side of human nature and the dark side of human nature. In order to achieve the bright side of human nature, one must be smart, kind, and generous, which is quite hard for many people, and many fail. However, Huck still meets a few people with this factor along his adventures, such as Judith Loftus and the two armed men. A few people who fail in this factor choose to stick to the dark side of human nature. The dark side of human nature consists of many paths: some are of greediness, and lying, cheating, or scamming, while some more dangerous ones consist of murder, theft, robbery, and hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is where one claims to be and feel one way, but has an opposite behavior. Several examples of hypocrisy are: the Grangerfords, who consider themselves to be noble but are stupid in another’s perspective; the townspeople, who claim to send punishment to the murderer but run away cowardly; or even the audiences of the Shakespeare show, who make up a ‘great’ plan to punish the King and Duke but fail miserably. Theft, murder, and robbery are showcased by the Duke and King, Pap, and the group of murderers and robbers that killed Turner. Both sides of human nature and their different pathways and shown in the novel by different examples Huck comes through along his journey.
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN shows many themes and backgrounds that Huck discovers and experiences during his journey and many adventures with Jim. He experiences the desire for freedom, discovers the meaning of the slavery system, finds out how the religion of certain people change their treatment, grows up during the journey, and meets many people with a clear side between the two parts of human nature. This novel also consists of the factor of superstition, which is where one believes a way for one to get good luck or bad luck. Examples for bad luck in the novel are: killing a spider, looking at the moon over your left shoulder, having your hat hung on a limb beside you, touching snake skin, and so on. This novel in one of the few “Great American Novels” with literary allusions of romanticism and realism. It also shows a similarity with Don Quixote, One Thousand and One Nights, Pilgrim’s Progress, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Man in the Iron Mask, related to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Color Purple, Gulliver’s Travels, and The Underground Railroad. This novel has all the main themes of American literature within, or as Ernest Hemingway says, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”
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