Journey to Freedom: An Analysis of Huckleberry Finn

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

ever present and abuses Huck whenever he can get his hands on him. In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim evolves into a father figure to Huck as they escape the evils of society by way of the Mississippi River.
Huck needs a father figure in his life because his own father, "Pap," is rarely sober and always abusive.

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

was.
As Huck and Jim go along their journey, they become closer and Jim opens up to Huck, telling him about his past. Jim reveals that he has a family that he misses very much and hasn't seen for a very long time. He explains how his little daughter contracted scarlet fever. A few days passed after she recovered, and he asked her to close the kitchen door. She just stood there. He asked her a few more times, and struck her across the face when she still didn’t budge. Then the wind slammed the door shut, and she didn't even blink. It didn't startle her at all. Jim says to Huck,
“Oh, Huck, I bust out a-cryin’ en grab her up in my arms, en say, ‘Oh, de po’ little thing! De Lord God Almighty fogive po’ ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive hisself as long’s he live!’ Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb deef en dumb-en I’d ben a-treat’n her so!” (Twain, 140).
It turns out that the fever had taken the little girl's hearing and voice, and Jim felt awful for getting mad at her when she couldn't hear him. His mistakes haunt him, and he feels like Huck is his second chance to be a good father. Every time Huck is in danger, Jim tries to be protective of him, as if he is taking care of his daughter again. Jim’s treatment of Huck is different from Pap’s because Jim has incentive to be kind to Huck, while Pap does not. If Jim can be a good father to Huck, his mistakes with his daughter will be forgiven and he will be redeemed. Huck is not primarily in Pap’s care, so Pap does not feel obligated to take care of him.
In a last expression of protectiveness, Jim shields Huck from seeing something that would traumatize him. They two of them come across a house that has fallen apart and is almost hanging in the water. Upon investigation, the house contains a lot of junk, odds and ends, and a body. Right away, Jim takes a look at the body and says to Huck, “I reck’n he’s ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan’ look at his face-it’s too gashly” (Twain, 45). Jim later reveals that the body was Pap’s, and Jim didn’t want Huck to see his father dead, however abusive he was in life. This expresses Jim’s protectiveness towards Huck that references back to the incident with his deaf and mute daughter. By having to take care of Huck, Jim is constantly reminded of his guilty past. Jim uses this guilt to be protective of Huck and to make sure he does everything in his power to help him. He knows that Pap was abusive and that he scares Huck all the time, but he also wants to preserve Huck’s innocence. Jim took part of his daughter’s innocence by striking her, and he doesn’t want to take any of Huck’s by showing him his dead father.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Jim and Huck grow closer which allows Jim to fill Huck’s need for a father figure. With Jim’s protection, Huck is given the kindness and attention that Pap never gave him. Pap is abusive and cruel, while Jim is kind and gentle. A father’s job is to guide and nurture, and Jim does that while Pap was never sober enough to even try. This relationship also gives Jim a second chance at fatherhood. He uses Huck to make the right parenting choices that he should have made with his daughter. His success in protecting Huck gives him hope that, when he is reunited with his family, he will be able to use the parenting skills he learned with Huck to never make the same mistakes again. Huck taught Jim to not jump to conclusions, and to trust people. Jim jumped to conclusions when he thought his daughter was simply disobeying him. Huck taught him to look at the big picture and see what needs to be seen. As Jim and Huck taught one another many life lessons, Jim grew to be a father figure to Huck, a better father than Pap ever was.