What is the role of the river in The adventures of Huckleberry Finn?

What is the role of the river in The adventures of Huckleberry Finn?

The Mississippi river seems to control the form of the story. In Mark Twain’s The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck’s adventure is affected by the river in three parts; These parts are before the river, on the river and after the river. Huck’s adventure is steered by the river to show that, in any story, the beginning and end are undefined.

Before the river, Huck and all of his friends are introduced, and he is in civilization, which Huck despises. Eventually, Huck his to escape. Huck eventually gets to the river, when his real adventure begins. Huck meets Jim on the island where he is hiding for the time being. This is when the river seems to start to influence them. They both decide to go on the raft, and travel down the river, unknowing of what could happen. T.S. Eliot says “What we call its headwaters is only a selection from among the innumerable sources which flow together to compose it” (154.) This beginning of the story starts in the middle, which reflects the river; One does not see the beginning of the river, only all of its sources moving together. Huck’s story is just like this. The story also develops and progresses while on the river.

Huck and Jim continue on the river as it guides them and forms the story. The river “cannot tolerate any design, to a story which is its story, that might interfere with its nce. Things must merely happen, here and there, to the people who live along its shores or commit themselves to its current” (154). The river surely seems to do this in Huck’s adventure, casting them into unsuspected adventures, introducing them to odd new people. Huck and Jim also come across problems that they need to figure out on the fly, problems that seemingly come from nowhere. The river also seems a sanctuary to Huck and Jim. These things are undefined especially because they seem random, or unpredictable. Of course, the river has these paths that it steers Huck and Jim on, and they accept them and go with the flow, no pun intended. Huck and Jim also finish the story with something that doesn’t seem to end their story- merely a continuation.

A continuation, like the river always displays because “at the end it merely disappears among its deltas: it is no longer there, but it is still where it was, hundreds of miles to the North” (154).