Questioning Huck's Transformation: Analysis of Huckleberry Finn's Ending

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is considered a great American novel. However, over the years many readers and critics have found fault with the ending. One critic states, “Eliot feels the end of the book rounds off the story and brings the reader back to the level of the childish, boyish beginning, while Trilling sees the close of the novel as a device which permits Huck to fall back into the anonymity he prefers”. Many question why Huck leaves Jim and falls back into his childish ways, after building a meaningful relationship with Jim throughout their adventures. In the beginning, Huck views Jim as a slave who deserves to be punished for escaping but Huck undergoes a transformation throughout the story Huck moves to view Jim as a friend and equal to him in everyway.

Huck’s one sided view about African American is evident when he states, “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way”. It is clear that Huck does not want to apologize to the Black man due to his racist views but the reader can see a small amount of remorse in his voice. While Huck has undergone a revolution in how he views Jim, he chooses to leave and sets out for the territories. How could Huck leave Tom and Jim after everything that they have been through and the moral conversion that Huck has experienced? I believe that the ending is appropriate because Huck is a twelve-year-old boy who is a symbol of the American spirit and cannot be chained to a life filled with strict rules and proper etiquette. The appropriateness of the ending is evident in Huck’s treatment of Jim and Huck’s moral complicity with Tom.
Huck’s treatment of Jim centers around the moral conflict rather or not to turn Jim in as a runaway slave. Outside sources such as society and Huck’s moral conscious complicate his decisions through out their adventures. Society, in this time period, is rooted in hatred towards African Americans and is evident when Pap describes his views on voting by stating, “They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to”? Therefore, everything that Huck has learned from his family, religion, and society tells him to turn Jim in and collect the reward. As the story unfolds Huck develops a relationship with Jim and it is tested when he is faced with the decision to turn Jim in to Miss Watson or free him from the captivity of the Duke and the Dauphin. As Huck is composing the letter to Miss Watson reveiling Jims locations he states, “It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: "All right, then, I'll go to hell" (Twain, p. 239). Huck’s relationship with Jim is more important than living up to the standards of humanity that he would rather face the fait that awaits him for breaking the law of society than turn Jim in. While, Huck’s transformation is recognized one must advance to address the fact that Huck leaves Jim at the end of the novel. Huck Finn is considered to be an individual who seeks adventure and exploration. Therefore, his decision to continue him journey is appropriate in all aspects of Huck’s character. One could argue that the traits that made Huck a hero has vanished. The reader has seen many examples of Huck’s so called “Transformation” but his decision to leave emphases what was known in the beginning, which is that Huck possesses the ambition to experience the world with out the poisons of society.
Huck’s moral complicity with Tom is that of societal upbringing.

While Tom was brought us in a well-mannered and high society family, Huck’s childhood in ravished with poverty and lack of decorum. As the story unfolds, Tom views Jim’s escape as a game by composing radical escape plans while knowing that Miss Watson has died. Tom knows that Jim is a free man, yet he muddles with his fait by allowing him to remain in captivity. Tom develops an extravagant escape plan for him by stating, “They always dig out with a case-knife- and not through dirt, mind you; generally it’s through solid rock. An it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever and ever”. Chapter 35. Tom does not see Jim as a real person; he tells Huck that in order for the escape plan to be fun it must be complicate. Huck sees the fault in Tom’s plan because he cares for Jim and wants him to escape the binds of slavery. Therefore, Huck’s moral expansion has placed himself outside the standards and principles of society at this time. I believe the ending is appropriate because Huck sees that Toms moral code is different than his own and he reverts back to his old ways by escaping the tied of society yet

again.