Huck Finn Essay, Research Paper
Huck, the protagonist in this novel, is generally a good guy throughout the book. He has many good traits.
He is very literal minded, making him a good narrator. He is very free spirited and he does what he wants, when he wants. He is also able to adapt to his living conditions. He first lives in a nice house, then a small cabin, then the raft. Huck is also compassionate, he helps free Jim, and feels sorry for the crooks on the Walter Scott, and the duke and the king when they get tarred and feathered. A big debate surrounds Huck on whether he changes or not throughout the novel. Huck, in the beginning, seems very set in the south’s anti-black ways, although, Huck states that he will go to hell to keep Jim out of slavery. At this point it seems like he does change, however, at the end of the book, Huck plays yet another practical joke on Jim, and seems as though any change was temporary.
A conflict in this novel would be the return of Huck’s Pa. Huck sees footprints in the snow that he recognizes as his Pa’s. Huck realizes that Pa has returned to claim his money, and so he quickly runs to Judge Thatcher and “sells” his share of the money for a “consideration” of a dollar. Pa catches Huck and makes him hand over the dollar, and threatens to beat Huck if he ever goes to school again.
Judge Thatcher and the Widow try to gain court custody of Huck, but a new judge in town refuses to separate Huck from Pa. Soon thereafter, Pa steals Huck away from the Widow’s house and takes him to a log cabin. Huck says that he enjoys the life at first, but he soon decides to escape after Pa starts to frequently beat him. Another conflict, unfortunately for Jim and Huck, during the fog they passed Cairo, and they lost their raft, and as they float down the river a steamboat smashes the boat and Jim and Huck get separated.
Huck has an internal conflict on whether he should turn in Jim or not. They travel down the river and Jim starts talking about what he is going to do once he gets free, and this upsets Huck, because it sickens him to be called an abolitionist, and to go against society, so Huck grabs the canoe and starts to go to shore to tell someone about Jim. While he is doing so, Jim tells him how great a friend he is.
Huck finds two slave catchers, but he then has a change of mind, and decides not to tell the men about Jim. When they want to check out the raft to make sure, Huck says that it is his dad who is on board, and he lets the men assume that his father has small pox, and the men get scared at this, leave Huck money and run off.
Anti slavery is a theme in this novel. Throughout the book, we see Huck interacting with Jim as human to human, while everyone else treats him just as a piece of property. Most everyone else thought of Jim and Blacks as something less than human. Huck knew this was wrong, and his actions followed this when he rescued Jim. [Pap when drunk] “?There was a free nigger there from Ohio…They said he was a p?fessor in college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain?t the wust. They said he could vote when he was at home.?” [between Huck and a Wilkes girl] “?How is servants treated in England? Do they treat ?em better ?n we treat our niggers??
?No! A servant ain?t nobody there. They treat ?em worse than dogs.?
?Don?t they give ?em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year?s Week, and the Fourth of July??”
“When we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with a quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off.”
The novel The Adventures of Huckle Berry Finn has the title it does because the book is about Huck Finns adventures. If I could change any thing in the book I would change the way Jim is treated. Jim was treated unjustly because the color of his skin was different. I felt that his treatment was morally wrong. Mark twain used literary techniques such as “Real” language satire and irony. His characters talk as people of that time period did, using slang, and non-proper English
When The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins, the main character, Huck Finn, possessed a large amount money. This causes his life style to change drastically. Huck gets an education, and a home to live in with a caring elderly woman (the widow). Huck was not satisfied. He wanted his old lifestyle back. Huck’s drunk father (Pa), who had previously left him, was also not pleased with Huck’s lifestyle. He didn’t feel that his son should have it better than he. He tries to get a hold of the money for his own uses, but fails. He proceeds to lock Huck up in his cabin on the outskirts of town. Huck then stages his kidnapping and death. He takes a canoe across to Jackson’s Island in the Mississippi River. There he comes across a runaway slave, Jim, and the two decide to leave the area. The rest of novel consists of their adventures during travel down the Mississippi River towards freedom.
1 Satire: an artistic work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony
2 Aversion: A strong dislike for something, with a desire to turn away from it.
3 Cynicism: The belief that all human conduct is motivated by self-interest.
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