The Liberties Within The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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The Liberties within The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an iconic novel that satirizes many of the romantic writers during it’s time. The main character, Huck, is a young boy who lives with a widow and her sister because of his father’s drunken stupors and abusive ways. When Pap comes to take Huck’s money, Huck gives it away, and out of anger for Huck’s indecency and civilized manners, Pap kidnaps Huck and takes him to live with him. Not long after Huck’s arrival, he escapes and fakes his death and floats towards Jackson Island. There he finds the widow’s runaway slave, Jim. Huck helps Jim escape the many threats of capture and in the end steals him from slavery. Within the novel, Mark Twain uses the topics of personal will, literal and figurative prisons, and the burden of an unequal society to advance the theme of freedom.
The usage of personal will throughout the novel helps shape Huck into a character who regards the consequences of his actions. Huck’s establishment of free will is conveyed when he visits the judge and tells him “I want to give it to you- the six thousand and all.” (Twain 17). Huck’s change in personality can almost be described as a pilgrimage from predetermination to social advancement. This one advancement of character sets the whole novel in motion for it is the first act of personal will. Huck’s free will once again surfaces as his conscience tells him to turn Jim in, while his heart tells him to set him free. Ultimately Huck decides that (not for the good of himself, but for the good of another) turning Jim in would be rather indecent, for he was running for his freedom as well. This ideal therefore proves Huck’s grapple on self awareness and free will is not as mu...

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...s “joys” of street prostitution, and open your eyes to the violence and control the pimps and sex traffickers exercise over their victims, who are mostly girls and young women.” (Frundt 1). The theme of freedom can be related to today through the freedom and liberties that are taken from those who deserve it most.

Works Cited
Chadwick, Hansen. “The Character of Jim and the ending of Huckleberry Finn.” The
Massachusetts Review 1963: 3723.
Frundt, Tina. “Enslaved in America: Sex Trafficking in the United States.” Women’s Funding Network. n.p. n.d. Online. March 27th, 2014.
Jay, Martin. “American Civilization threatens to destroy Huck.”Harvests of Change: American Literature, 1845-1914 (1967):109-110. Rpt. In Readings on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Print. March 27th, 2014.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Sterling, 2006. Print.

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