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.
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