The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is a novel by an American author Mark Twain, which was first
published in the United States in February 1885. The story is written in first person and is about the
events that occur around Huckleberry Finn (beginning in St. Petersburg, Missouri) after gaining a
significant amount of money with Tom Sawyer.
The main theme of this novel is racism and slavery, and this recurs with a runaway slave character
Jim. Twain wrote this two decades after the civil war, however, even by this time, the US was not a
pleasant for the blacks to be. Although slavery was abolished by law, racism towards blacks and
unfair treatments towards different skin-colored people continued, especially in the Southern parts of
the country. This concept is introduced when Jim is proposed to the reader as ‘slave of Miss Watson’
in chapter 2 and this continues as Huck makes a miserable decision of travelling down the river
towards South. Additionally, in this novel, Twain critiques the neglecting society and exposes the
hypocrisy of slavery, ‘demonstrates how racism distorts the oppressors as much as it does those who
are oppressed.’ This leads to bemused atmosphere about moral concerns as the seemingly ‘good’
white people are expressing no apprehension about cruelty of separating Jim’s family and about the
grievance of slavery.
The character Huckleberry Finn develops gradually develops along the story. In the beginning
chapters, he seems rather unconfident and immature. The novel begins with Widow Douglas trying to
‘sivilize’ Huck as he is supposedly from the lowest parts of the white society with his dad being a
drunkard and Huck himself having the tendency to be dirty and homeless. His confidence is rather
discouraged every time Tom Sawyer suggests new risky ideas of planning an expedition and Huck
seems to never put forward one. However, by chapter 38, it is intelligible that he has grew into a more
sensible and sagacious, although he shows slight hints of undeveloped features of his personality. He
becomes more independent; he proposes and leads a plan with or to save Jim. Moreover, whereas he
used to disregard the existing laws and went against it by giving help to Jim, in the last four chapters,
he shows consideration. For example, when Tom accepts Huck’s request of helping to save Jim, Huck
finds it peculiar how Tom is so willing to do something that goes against the society’s ideal behaviors
and the law.
The most significant symbolism of the whole novel can be the Mississippi river, representing
freedom. Huck floats down the river as he gains freedom from his violent drunkard Pap. In a similar
way, Jim gains freedom from being a captured slave under Miss Watson. This demonstrates how for
these two, river provided a temporary region where they can be free from what they are afraid of.
Overall, this novel can be said to be about dilemmas about ‘good’ and ‘evil’ on different topics. For
Huck, it was whether helping Jim escape in any situations were the right thing to do. For the society,
it was whether the white were the real good people or not. The novel discovers different perspectives
on controversial subjects and touches on the reality of people’s nature.