Huck Finns Ending

Dear Mark Twain,

After reading your famous novel, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” I don’t feel that the ending you have created is suitable for the book. Throughout the entire novel, Huck is going to all extremes to help out a friend in need, Jim. As a slave, Jim is grateful for having such an honest and open friend like Huck, but it seems as if when he finds out he was free all along, things change. When Jim and Huck found themselves at the end of their journey, neither had anything left to run from because Huck’s dad was dead and Jim found out that Mrs. Watson freed him when she passed away a few months ago and hoped he would soon be with his family. Because of this ending of your choice, we never find out Huck’s true feelings about helping a run away slave besides what we learned earlier in the book. It seems as if the special bond that Huck and Jim shared was over, each were going their own separate ways and moving on in their lives.

I found the ending very disappointing because throughout all the situations that took place in the book, Twain develops Huck as a character growing up and accepting his innate ideas of right and wrong, but we soon find out that Huck hasn’t grown at all. It seems as if Huck and Jim have formed a strong friendship with each other and Huck no longer looks down upon his as a slave, but sees him as an equal individual and a friend. When Huck is re-united with Tom, we find this to be false because he goes back to his old ways in which he was taught through his child hood and refers to Jim as property.

Another major disappointment is that Twain ends the novel as he started, with Huck running away from a civilized life style. In the beginning of the novel, Mrs. Watson was trying to civilize Huck so he decided to run away, at the end of the novel he fears that Aunt Sally is going to try and civilize him, so he decides to run west to the enchanted territory. This is an important technique that Twain uses to try and indirectly point blame at anybody, but it is obvious to the reader. Huck does not decide to leave because he thinks that society is rotten, he decides to leave because he thinks that he is the one that is rotten, and cannot be civilized, so he decides to go somewhere far away from civilization. Ironically, it is the corrupting...

... middle of paper ...

...n. He applied what little knowledge he had well, and managed to help several people, including himself, along his journey down the river.

One idea that I found very interesting was that Huck and Jim were two completely different people running in the same direction in the beginning, and at the end they become the closest of friends, but when we soon learn that it seems as if all has faded away and the journey was useless. It comes across to the reader that both Huck and Jim were on the raft together for one reason and that would be to escape civilization. That would be the original idea but because of their bond that’s not the intent of the book. Huck and Jim both had one thing that held them together and that was the goodness at heart, not only did Huck go against everything he was taught, but he didn’t have a problem doing it and by you ending the book in such a way just seems like everything that happened doesn’t matter and an incredible journey traveled by two amazing individuals doesn’t matter in the end. It just seems like Huck gave up on everything he worked so hard for and not only let himself down, but his best friend and companion Jim also.