Journey to Freedom: An Analysis of Huckleberry Finn

1124 Words3 Pages

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is about a young boy who helps a slave escape from his master by floating down the Mississippi River on a raft. The story starts with Huck's abusive, alcoholic father, "Pap," kidnapping him from the nice widow, Mr. Watson, whom Huck was living with. Huck manages to escape and meets up with Jim, a slave of Mrs. Watson's, who ran away. As Huck and Jim float to freedom from slavery and other evils of society, they meet a variety of characters from different sides of humanity, including conmen and two families in a deadly feud. On their journey, Jim and Huck grow emotionally closer and Jim becomes somewhat of a father figure to Huck. This is beneficial to Huck because his real father is hardly …show more content…

Huck got a glimmer of hope when the village thought they found Pap drowned in the river, but Huck reasoned that the body was not Pap, and Huck expresses his fear when he says, "So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up by and by, though I wished he wouldn't" (Twain, 11). Huck’s fear of Pap is so extreme that Pap’s survival comes as a disappointment. Huck wishes Pap would stay away and never come back, but he keeps coming back to get money for whiskey,which Huck gives to him because it will make him go away. The whole town knows that Pap is abusive and they are always trying their best to get him sober or legally take Huck away from him, but they never manage to succeed. Pap doesn't even want Huck to be educated, and orders him to stop going to school. Neither Pap nor Huck's mother learned to read, and Pap accuses Huck of feeling superior because he is getting an education. In contrast to Pap, Jim is always kind to Huck during their journey, and he drinks alcohol to relieve venom from a snake bite, not to get drunk like Pap. He is never abusive to Huck, and is a better father to Huck than Pap ever

Open Document