Huckleberry Finn Ending Analysis

Unfair Perfect Endings
Novels do not always end the way that is expected, and they don’t always end fairly. Despite Huck and Tom having a fair and suitable ending, that does not justify how the novel ended for other characters. The ending in Huck Finn seems too perfect to be realistic; the last two chapters seem very lacking in emotion. Jim, a free man, was locked up as a slave when a was declared free in Miss Watson’s will. The ending was not appropriate, it just did not end realistically. With so many stereotypes and hatred, it would be assumed that Huck Finn would not end so perfectly as it did.
In the standpoint of realism, chapter 42 seems to have a lack of intuition and effort. Huck was the main character that Twain ingrained this idea

into, along with Tom. When Tom Sawyer tells Huck that Jim has been a free man for quite some time, Huck doesn’t seem very phased when it is quite emphasized; “...Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson setting Jim free in her will...Tom Sawyer had gone and took all that trouble...to set a free n***** free!” (Twain 290). Instead, Huck just seems baffled that Tom would go through such a struggle to set Jim free. Tom did treat Jim’s freedom as a game, though. In result, Tom’s run around games make perfect sense. In that sense, it works out with how he was against helping Huck free Jim, and then he comes back suddenly willing to help Jim towards freedom. Tom never really showed that he cared for Jim, while it is apparent that he just wanted the adventure.
Flawed endings can cause some frustration coming from a reader, and that’s exactly what Twain gave the audience. He gave Tom and Huck perfect endings, but Jim’s ending would strike someone as flawed and unfinished. Huck talks about himself and Tom in the last paragraph of the novel; “Tom’s most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watch-guard for a watch...I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest...” (Twain 293). Huck never mentions Jim and his well-being. So it seems that the novel is completely open for another book, but Twain did not write any more. Twain had “Nothing Left to Write” as stated in the last chapter’s title, which resulted in inconclusive and too perfect endings. Since the reader does not see Jim anymore after he informs Huck, “...en dey wuz a man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him an didn’ let you come in? Well, den, you kin git yo’ money when you wants it, kase dat wuz him” (Twain 293). The best that can be done after this explanation is to predict that Jim is well and being taken care of.
It is argued that Jim’s ending was appropriate in showing how unfair slavery was in the given time period, but that does not make it okay for him to return to slavery.

Jim is a free man, and it is not fitting that he was taken back into slavery for a brief moment. “Him?...the runaway n*****? ‘Deed he hasn’t. They’ve got him back, safe and sound, and he’s in the cabin again, on bread and water, loaded with chains, till he’s claimed or sold!” (Twain 288). Aunt Sally explains that Jim is chained up in the cabin, even though he is a free man. This is not fair for him, and he does not deserve an inconclusive ending. When Jim is saying he will not leave without a doctor to fix up Tom, Huck explicates, “I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did say…” (Twain 275). Twain, making Huck say this, emphasizes the white and black personality barrier. While whites are good and trustworthy people, blacks are deemed as inferior and not trustworthy whatsoever. So even if Jim is white inside, he deserves an ending like he is white inside.
Ending a novel can be difficult for an author, as someone is always going to be unhappy with the ending. But Twain, however, did not seem to care. Twain made his last few chapters in Huck Finn very lacking of emotion. Another way to look at the ending is that Huck and Tom got the perfect ending, and Jim did not. Jim was a free man, and was declared so in Miss Watson’s will. This ending was not so realistic and was very inconclusive with how perfect it ended up

being.