Huckleberry Finn ~Don't stop. Belieeeeevin'! Hold on to that feeeeeeeeeliiiiiin'.

Christina DeSario
AP English- Mr. George
8•27•09
Huckleberry Finn- prompt 2

Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be compared to these famous lyrics, “Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world. She took the midnight train going anywhere. Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit. He took the midnight train going anywhere” (Journey). A young boy, from a small southern town, on a raft to God knows where. Then Jim, a slave headed towards freedom, on the raft with him. Two unlikely people meet up and end up on the journey of their lives that leads to the two losing connection with the the world and discovering more about life from each other and those they meet along the way than everybody they had left behind on land.
Through Huckleberry and Jim’s adventures, the reader can easily see the difference between Huck and the rest of society. The Grangerfords, for example, had over one hundred slaves, whereas Huck never had one. While living with them, he was given one named Jack, although Jack “had a monstrous easy time, because I warn’t used to having anybody do anything for me” (Twain 118). Had he wanted to, it is possible Huck could have made Jim his slave while they were on the raft together, simply because of the huge gap between the two races. However, that never passed through Huck’s mind, and he simply did as he wanted and allowed Jim to do the same.
It was very early on where Huck gets disconnected from the rest of the world. That is shown when he goes back to his hometown dressed as a girl for a while a few days after he feigns his death. He sees a new person has moved into a house that “hadn’t been lived in for a long time” (65), and goes there to get information. Already, there is a gap forming between who he was, and who he will become.
During the raft ride, Huck was able to put things together on his own. He was not strongly influenced by those around him, because only Jim was around him. Because he was surrounded only by a black man hoping for freedom, racism did not play a large role in his life, although his old habits were still there. He was still racist, because he had grown up around racism, and he once thought,
“Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was almost free- and who who was to blame for it? Why, me... I tried to make out to myself that I warn’t to blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it warn’t no use, conscious comes up and says, every time, ‘But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody’” (100).
Huck still has trouble seeing Jim as a real human, and sees him still as a piece of property, or more like a pet, from the way he sounds so sad about it. Even though he still had racist thoughts, he was still able to interact with Jim like two normal people, instead of like a master and slave.
Huck meets two men. One says he is the Duke of Bridgewater, while the other claims to be the Dauphin. While at first Jim and Huck believe their lies, “it didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no kings nor dukes, at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds” (137). Huck knew they were not what they claimed to be, he ignored it and allowed them to use him and Jim as slaves. He had good reason for doing this, and explains very maturely that he “never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it’s the best way; then you don’t have no quarrels, and don’t get into no trouble... If I never learnt nothing else out out pap, I learnt the the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their way” (136). He kept his mouth shut and the truth to himself. This was a very mature decision on his part. For a young boy to decide to keep a secret such as that without making a fuss makes him more adult than the cons who tricked an uneducated man and a young kid for their own greedy purposes.
Huck was more of a man than most men in the book. He says, after Colonel Sherburn lectures the crowd about men and they all leave, “I could a staid, if I’d a wanted to, but I didn’t want to” (159). He says this in a very relaxed tone that makes him sound unafraid. Although, he probably was, since Sherburn was aiming a gun at the mob, but he sounded like he was trying to have courage. He was trying to be someone bigger and better than himself, and his journey along the river probably had a lot to do with that, along with the strength he learned from his abusive father.
When the Wilks sisters lost their money, Huck manned up. Each time he talked to another sister, he kept thinking, “this is another one that I’m letting him rob her out of her money” (188), and it bothered him. Finally he decided, “I’ll hive that money for them or bust” (188). Huck liked the Wilks, and did not want to cheat them, like the king and duke were so willing to do.
The Duke sells Jim into slavery, and then Huck changes very dramatically in the way he thinks. Although he had racist tendencies in the beginning, such as when he believed that it was his fault Jim was going to be free, he suddenly becomes ready to fight for his friend. Huck at first wants to do the right thing by the racist way of thinking, but he realizes that is not the truly right thing to do: “I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping... and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had a smallpox onboard, and he was so grateful... and then I happened to look around and see that paper” (228). This metaphora in Huck makes him decide that, even though he believes it is wrong, he must save Jim.
Huck later says about Jim, “I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did say” (290). The racism that once held on so tightly to him was loosening its grip. He was not full through with it, but he saw Jim as human when he called him white inside. He risked his life to save a black man, and accepted him as something more than what other people saw them as.
Tom wanting to get away from Aunt Sally in the end is a sign of maturity. After being on his own, instead of wanting to relax with a happy home, he is ready to live on his own again and take care of himself.
Two unlikely people meet up and end up on the journey of their lives that leads to the two losing connection with the the world and discovering more about life from each other and those they meet along the way than everybody they had left behind on land. Through the tough times and the fun times, Huck took his experiences and became a better person through them.He became a good, strong man through his experiences. He was ahead of his time for the south as he learned white people and black people are the same, dispite their color. “Everybody wants a thrill. Do anything to roll the dice just one more time” (Journey) is the simplist way to put Huck Finn’s journey in words.