The Narrator of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Narrator of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain chose Huck Finn to be the narrator to make the story

more realistic and so that Mark Twain could get the reader to examine their

own attitudes and beliefs by comparing themselves to Huck, a simple

uneducated character.

Twain was limited in expressing his thoughts by the fact that Huck

Finn is a living, breathing person who is telling the story. Since the

book is written in first person, Twain had to put himself in the place of a

thirteen-year-old son of the town drunkard. He had to see life as Huck did

and had to create a character that could see life as Mark Twain saw it.

Huck is more than Twain's mouthpiece because he is a living character and

is capable of shaping the story. The language that Huck uses shows what he

sees and how he will pass it on to us. Something else that is apparent is

that the humor of the book often depends on Huck's language. In chapter

fourteen, Huck is telling Jim about royalty in general which is an example

of humor through language and incomplete education although sometimes he is

not that far from the truth.

"They [royalty] don't do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around."

"No; is dat so?"

"Of course it is. They just set around, except, maybe, when there's a war;

then they go to war. But other times they just lazy around; or go hawking-

just hawking...when things is dull, they fuss with the parlyment; and if

everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads off. But mostly they

hang round the harem."

However, b...

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...inually bothered by his

conscience. All during the trip down river, he tries to answer the question

whether he's doing right by the Widow's sister and by Jim, or not. The

obsession with justice has him confused. Whatever he chooses to do, he's

wrong. He's wronging Jim if he returns him to slavery; he's wronging Miss

Watson if he helps Jim escape. Huck has no way of knowing what is right. He

must follow his feelings and the only thing he can do is to learn by

experience. And he does.

Using Huck Finn as the narrator of the book allowed Mark Twain to

add more life, excitement, and realism in his writings. We can only think

how good Mark Twain was at languages by how he writes. Twain created Huck,

but soon Huck had his own personality and life and Mark Twain had to write

with this character.