FREE ESSAY ON HUCK FINN

HUCK FINN

The narrator (later identified as Huckleberry Finn) begins Chapter One by stating that the
reader may know of him from another book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mr. Mark Twain,
but it ain't t no matter if you have not. According to Huck, Twain mostly told the truth,
with some stretchers thrown in, though everyone--except Tom's Aunt Polly, the widow, and
maybe Mary--lies once in a while. The other book ended with Tom and Huckleberry finding
the gold some robbers had hidden in a cave. They got six thousand dollars apiece, which
Judge Thatcher put in trust, so that they each got a dollar a day from interest. The
Widow Douglas adopted and tried to civilise Huck. But Huck couldn't stand it so he threw
on his old rags and ran away. But he went back when Tom Sawyer told him he could join his
new band of robbers if he would return to the Widow and be respectable.
The Widow lamented over her failure with Huck, tried to stuff him into cramped clothing,
and before every meal had to grumble over the food before they could eat it. She tried to
teach him about Moses, until Huck found out he was dead and lost interest. Meanwhile, she
would not let him smoke; typically, she disapproved of it because she had never tried it,
but approved of snuff since she used it herself. Her slim sister who wears glasses, Miss
Watson, tried to give him spelling lessons.
Meanwhile, Huck was going stir-crazy, made especially restless by the sisters' constant
reminders to improve his behavior. When Miss Watson told him about the bad place, Hell,
he burst out that he would like to go there, as a change of scenery. Secretly, Huck
really does not see the point in going to the good place and resolved then not to bother
trying to get there. When Huck asked, Miss Watson told him there was no chance Tom Sawyer
would end up in Heaven. Huck was glad because I wanted him and me to be together.
One night, after Miss Watson's prayer session with him and the slaves, Huck goes to bed
feeling so lonesome I wished I was dead. He gets shivers hearing the sounds of nature
through his window. Huck accidentally flicks a spider into a candle, and is frightened by
the bad omen. Just after midnight, Huck hears movement below the window, and a me-yow
sound, that he responds to with another me-yow. Climbing out the window onto the shed,
Huck finds Tom Sawyer waiting for him.
Commentary 
In a few short dense pages, Twain manages to accomplish a great deal. Most importantly,
the two introductory notes and the first chapter establish the author's use of humor and
irony, the character of Huckleberry Finn, the novel's theme, narration, and the use of
dialect. One hateful word the characters use has brought occasional condemnation onto the
book and its author. The characters of the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson are also
established. As well, the author establishes that the reader needs no familiarity with
his previous work, Tom Sawyer, to understand Huckleberry Finn, though he fills the reader
in on the pertinent information from the previous work.
The brief Notice that introduces the book has been reprinted above in its entirety. In
humorously highfalutin language, it states that the reader must not seek plot, moral, or
motive-- the last two of which likely correspond to the present-day concepts of theme and
character development. Of course, what the author really means by this notice is that the
book does in fact contain all these things--that it is more than just a children's,
adventure, or humor book. Twain is using irony, saying one thing but meaning the opposite
of its literal definition. He is using this irony humorously, covering this declaration
of the book's seriousness in a joke. The joke pokes fun at the seriousness of adult
American society, with its rules and officials, especially with the citation to G.G.,
Chief of Ordinance. Twain will use humor and irony throughout the book, most often
combining the two. Indeed, humor usually occurs as a result of irony, with the gap
between the expected and the actual provoking a startled reaction in the recipient, that,
if done right, is humor. But Twain's humor has the purpose not just of entertainment, but
of conveying a serious message, as in the Notice. Twain also uses ironic humor in Chapter
One, in recording Huckleberry's reactions to the Widow Douglas's attempts at
civilization, especially religion. When the Widow says grace, Huckleberry views it as
unnecessary grumbling. He finds the nice clothes she gives him stifling. He thinks Heaven
(the good place) dull and would prefer to go to Hell (the bad place- the word Hell would
likely be thought impolite in a civilized house like the sisters') if his friend Tom is
there.
Huck's views are all completely naturalistic, free of any of the pretensions toward
refinement that mark the Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson. Huckleberry is rough,
rustic--a truly uncivilized boy. He rebels against the restraints of
civilization--artificial, middle-class society-- and its delusions, represented by
cramped clothing and religion, respectively. Huckleberry's complete sincerity, which
leads to his dislike for hypocritical civilization, is his defining quality.
The Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson, meanwhile, are the representatives of the
society Huck rejects. They both immerse themselves in the values of civilization, feeling
righteous by punishing themselves with tight clothing and delaying their meals to say
grace, which only appears as grumbling to the more sincere Huck. Above all, they adhere
to hypocritical and absurd religious values. Miss Watson describes her Heaven as a place
where the inhabitants spend their days playing harps and singing; again, Huck more
sincerely realizes that this place is dull rather than desirable. But the utter moral
emptiness of Miss Watson's religion is best demonstrated by her prayer meeting with the
slaves. Miss Watson dutifully respects the religious custom of evening prayer, yet at the
same time sees nothing wrong with owning other people. The two sisters' one redeeming
quality is their concern for Huck, which, though it possesses moralistic overtones,
includes an element of sincerity, giving them some patience in dealing with the
uncivilized Huck. Other than this, the sisters' role is to represent the artificial,
empty civilization to which Huck stands in contrast. Thus, they serve as foils to the
character of Huckleberry. Their artifice and hypocrisy contrast sharply with Huck's
natural sincerity, and so serve to highlight Huck's qualities.
Huck's recognition of the hypocrisies and absurdities of the society represented by the
Widow and Miss Watson, and his preference for nature and his own natural impulses, bring
out the novel's theme. Huckleberry Finn is about how society tends to corrupt true
morality, freedom, and justice, which exist in nature, and how the individual must follow
his or her own conscience. Chapter One establishes the corruption of the society in which
Huck lives. That society stifles freedom--in a small sense through its restrictive
clothing and manners, and in a larger sense through the institution of slavery--and also
morality and justice, with its absurd religion, hypocritical taboos, and, again, the
institution of slavery. Quite a few critics have characterized Twain's deep distrust in
society as pessimistic. Yet it is important to remember that Twain maintains full
confidence in the existence of morality, freedom, justice, and other absolutes. In fact,
they transcend society's most flagrant transgressions of them, awaiting proper
recognition by the attuned individual.
Huckleberry is not only the protagonist, but the narrator of the entire book. That is,
the book uses first-person narration. The reader only finds out about anything once Huck
does (though this does not preclude the possibility of the reader understanding something
that Huck does not). This way, the reader also gets Huck's impressions of the world,
which, as explained above, are important to the theme.
In the Explanatory note, Twain advises the reader that his characters will all speak in
dialects-- that is, regional, ethnic, and class variants of English. As Twain notes,
there are several different dialects used in Huckleberry Finn. This may make the book
somewhat more of a challenge to read, but if the reader sticks with it, the added detail
will make the book more involving and believable. The added detail is also part of the
book's realism--that is, its unromantic attempt at an accurate depiction of the world.
In particular, there is one word all the characters use that contributes to the novel's
accurate depiction of the world in which it is set. Yet this word is so hateful that over
the years it has brought charges of racism onto the book and its author, and even some
attempts to keep the book away from young people. The word is nigger. It is first used in
Chapter One, as it will be throughout the book, to refer to all African Americans and
especially those held as slaves. It is important to remember that the word is used as
part of the language of a corrupt, racist society. That society used that word as surely
as it held human beings in slavery. Both facts are described in the novel; it is
important to remember that the author condemns both.
Summary 
Huck and Tom tiptoe through the garden. Huck trips on a root as he passes the kitchen.
Jim, a big slave, hears him from inside. Tom and Huck crouch down, trying to stay still.
But Huck is struck by an uncontrollable itch, as always happens when he is in a
situation, like when he's with the quality, where it is bad to scratch. Jim says aloud
that he will stay put until he discovers the source of the sound, but after several
minutes falls asleep. Tom plays a trick on Jim--putting his hat on a tree branch over his
head--and takes candles from the kitchen, over Huck's objections that they will risk
getting caught. Later, Jim will say that some witches flew him around the state and put
the hat above his head as a calling card. He expands the tale further, becoming a local
celebrity among the slaves, who enjoy witch stories. He wears around his neck the
five-cent piece Tom left for the candles, calling it a charm from the devil with the
power to cure sickness. Jim nearly becomes so stuck-up from his newfound celebrity that
he is unfit to be a servant.
Meanwhile, Tom and Huck meet up with a few other boys, and take a boat to a large cave.
There, Tom declares his new band of robbers, Tom Sawyer's Gang. All must sign in blood an
oath vowing, among other things, to kill the family of any member who reveals the gang's
secrets. The boys think it a real beautiful oath. Tom admits he got part of it from
books. The boys nearly disqualify Huck, who has no family but a drunken father who can
never be found, until Huck offers Miss Watson. Tom says the gang must capture and ransom
people, though nobody knows what ransom means. Tom assumes it means to kill them. But
anyway, it must be done since all the books say so. When one boy cries to go home and
threatens to tell the group's secrets, Tom bribes him with five cents. They agree to meet
again someday, just not Sunday, which would be blasphemous. Huckleberry makes it back
into bed just before dawn.
Miss Watson tries to explain prayer to Huckleberry in Chapter Three. Huckleberry gives up
on it after not getting what he prays for. Miss Watson calls him a fool, and explains
prayer bestows spiritual gifts like selflessness to help others. Huck cannot see any
advantage in this, except for the others one helps. So he resolves to forget it. Widow
Douglas describes a wonderful God, while Miss Watson's is terrible. Huck concludes there
are two Gods. He would like to belong to Widow Douglas's, if He would take him - unlikely
because of Huck's bad qualities.
Meanwhile, a rumor circulates that Huck's Pap, who has not been seen in a year, is dead.
A corpse was found in the river, thought to be Pap because of its ragged appearance,
though the face is unrecognizable. At first Huck is relieved. His father had been a drunk
who beat him when he was sober, though Huck stayed hidden from him most of the time.
Soon, however, Huck doubts his father's death, and expects to see him again.
After a month in Tom's gang, Huck quit along with the rest of the boys. There was no
point to it, without any robbery or killing, their activities being all pretend. Once,
Tom pretended a caravan of Arabs and Spaniards were going to encamp nearby with hundreds
of camels and elephants. It turned out to be a Sunday school picnic. Tom explained it
really was a caravan of Arabs and Spaniards - only they were enchanted, like in Don
Quixote. Huckleberry judged Tom's stories of genies to be lies, after rubbing old lamps
and rings with no result.
Commentary 
These two chapters develop the characters of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. The two
are, in several respects, foils. But they still have some things in common. Through the
character of Tom, Twain also pokes fun at romantic (non-realistic) literature.
Tom insists that all his make-believe adventures be conducted by the book. As Tom himself
admits in regarding his gang's oath, he gets many of his ideas from fiction. In
particular, Tom tries to emulate the romantic (that is, not realistic) novels that were
mostly imported from Europe and achieved enormous popularity in nineteenth-century North
America. Tom will be identified with this genre throughout the novel (though he will not
appear in most of it). Twain detested this category of literature, an opinion that is
developed more fully in the last chapters of Huckleberry Finn. Ironically, the book that
Tom explicitly mentions as a model in these chapters is Cervantes's Don Quixote.
Cervantes actually satirized romantic adventure stories in his masterpiece, as Twain does
here and elsewhere in Huckleberry Finn.
Tom apparently didn't get the satire. But with this allusion, Twain may be giving a
literary tip of the hat to an earlier satirist and observer of human nature. But beyond
simply using Tom's connection to the romance novels to satirize the genre, Twain also
seems to be associating Tom with the civilization that the genre represents. Tom further
interests himself in contracts, codes of conduct, fancy language, and other made-up
ideas. He also seems to embody some of the negative qualities associated with
civilization in the novel. Most importantly, Tom is insensitive to others, particularly
the slaves. In Chapter Two, Tom actually wants to tie Jim up for the fun of it. He
settles for playing a trick on him. Tom's insensitivity, especially toward slaves, will
reach a peak in the book's final chapters. Tom also seems to possess a tendency in favor
of the hypocrisy of civilized society that Twain pokes at. For instance, Tom makes his
gang sign an oath in blood not to divulge the group's secrets, but when a boy threatens
to do this, Tom simply bribes him.
Tom's above-mentioned character traits contrast sharply with Huckleberry's corresponding
traits. While Tom puts great stock in the literature of civilization, Huck is as
skeptical of it as he is of religion. For both literature and religion, Huck refuses to
accept much on faith. In Chapter Three, he rejects both genies and prayers once they do
not produce the promised results. (Twain is making an irreverent statement on popular
religious beliefs by showing Huck's similar rejection of both prayer and genies.)
Again, since both religion and romantic literature are products of civilization, Huck's
doubt towards them hints at his separation from civilization. Also, where Tom is
insensitive to others, Huckleberry is naturally considerate, advising his friend against
tying Jim up or playing tricks on him. Tom's tendency toward hypocrisy also contrasts
sharply with Huck's sincerity, discussed in the critical reading of the last chapter.
Thus, the two characters of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are foils to each other:
certain traits of one character serve to highlight the contrasting traits of the other.
Nonetheless, though the important contrasting traits of the two characters make them
foils, they still share some traits in common. These shared traits are enough to preserve
the friendship between Tom and Huckleberry throughout the novel. Most importantly, the
two characters share a kind of boyishness-- that is, the characteristic embodied in the
phrase, boys will be boys, and expounded upon in the first novel, Tom Sawyer. In the
Preface to that book, the author wrote that he hoped the novel would rekindle its
readers' memories of their own childhood impishness, of how they felt and thought and
talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in. That theme is continued as
something of a motif, a topic of interest, in Huckleberry Finn. Both Huck and Tom, in
their own ways, delight in the dirty language and pranks that adults shun. On the whole,
though, Huck's separation from the world of adults and their civilization is more
complete, and more serious. Still, throughout the novel, Huck maintains some admiration
for Tom's romantic adventures, and often wonders what he would do in certain situations.
Thus, Huck's character has some connection to Tom's less desirable traits.