In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Mississippi River serves as a prominent setting. Huck, a rapscallion who runs away from his dad by faking his death, and Jim, a runaway slave who previously knew Huck, meet up on Jackson’s Island via the river. To Jim, the river is a symbol of freedom and a way to learn. To Huck, the river is a symbol of his life and everything he wants. The open waters bring about bonding, fun times, and a safe house for both characters. Amidst the water brings a deeper meaning of the river than just water, it is a great entity that shows freedom. Jim, the runaway slave, uses this river to escape from Miss Watson, his owner, because she planned on selling him for $800. The river flows to the free states, and this is where Jim plans on going with or without Huck. As he is with Huck more and more, Jim learns emotions, like love and compassion, on the river. Jim’s newly shown emotions come into play when the narrator states, “It was Jim’s voice – nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was so glad to see me” (Twain 112). Love and compassion is shown here by Jim, to Huck. Only freedom has given this runaway slave a way to learn and live like a human being should. Huck, the rapscallion who fakes his death, also has a deep relationship with the river. He relates the river to his life more or less. Since he is a free man, freedom wouldn’t be the right word, more blithe you could say. “It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study” (24). Huck’s nature of a care-free person is shown here. He does not like to be cramped up or reformed to anybody he is not. “[I] said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft” (113). Huck likes to be free and easy like the flowing river. It is undeniable that a slow-flowing river and Huck’s life are inter-related. To both of the characters, who meet up via this entity of water, the river symbolizes a place to bond and safety.
In, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, author, Mark Twain contrasts what life is like on the uncivilized shore compared to the peaceful life on the river. Huckleberry Finn is a character that rejects society's behaviors and values because he does not want to be "civilized" like everyone wants him to be. Huck is someone with a mind of his own and someone who does what he pleases. Since Huck is someone who rejects society, he eventually ends up running away and traveling up the Mississippi River with a slave name Jim. The two runaways find peace on the river and they also find that they do not have to deal with the cruel society on shore. In this respect, what qualities make the river and society on shore so different from one another and how does Twain establish these contrasts? Huck and Jim are two individuals seeking freedom from the uncivilized people on the shore and during their journey together they find freedom on the raft floating up the Mississippi River.
The Mississippi River, the prominent setting in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the place that Huck discovered his own logic. The Mississippi River was calm and sweet. Huck especially liked it because it was away from society. “Not a sound, anywheres—perfectly still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering maybe.” (Twain 108). Traveling on the river, Huck encountered some unlikely companions that taught him lessons about life. The first is when they encounter the two robbers on the Walter Scott, Huck and Finn board not expecting to see them there. They escape by jumping into the robbers’ boat and heading off as quietly as possible. When they are six hundred yards away, Huck feels bad for the robbers that were left stranded on the ship. It is an important aspect of Huck’s character development because he demonstrates that even though the robbers were bad men that did not deserve his compassion, they were also people in need of help. So he sends help for them. Huck reaches the point on the river where he meets the Grangerford family who are pleasant and respectable people. However, ...
Nothing is more important in the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer than freedom. Freedom plays an enormous role in the book Tom Sawyer. Whether it is people earning freedom or people not being granted it, every young boy in St. Petersburg wanted some form of freedom. The word freedom means the power to say and do what you want. Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper are all boys seeking freedom. Freedom is the key reason the boys run away to Jackson Island. Freedom is one of the main themes in the book.
On the river, Huck and Jim are free of the society that binds them. Jim is free and does not bear any of the prejudices of the world that plague him on the shore, says Ben Christensen. Jim does not have to live in fear of being beaten for being himself and he does not have to worry about being called stupid. Also, he says that Huck is allowed to think for himself here -- unshaped by the thoughts of society. He is always saying how Jim does not act like any other black he had been told about. Huck’s morality prevails on the river (Christensen).
Set in pre-civil war America, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn takes place along the Mississippi river. As Huckleberry travels along it he learns lessons about life, society and most importantly; himself. Surrounded by a world of prejudice and racism, Huck is forced to learn to make decisions on his own. He is able to learn from the imperfections in the rest of the world as he views them. While on the river, Huck and Jim are at peace. The river symbolizes freedom for both Jim and Huck. The river is Jim’s path to freedom from slavery, and it is Huck’s freedom from society. When Jim and Huck journey onto the banks of the river they see the inhumanity to man that goes on in the world. This juxtaposition of the river and the land help emphasize the peacefulness of the river in comparison to the crazy society on land. Huck learns to think for himself, and tries not to conform to the ways of the people on the land. Although the world that he lives in teaches him to be a racist, his journey down the river teaches him to use his own mind, and find out what he really believes in.
Throughout the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Mississippi River plays a highly significant role. The American landmark represents freedom, in many cases, to the runaway slave Jim. A cornerstone of Huck's maturity during the novel was the Mississippi River. This body of water reveals all that is wrong and ignorant in American society. The ignorance ranges anywhere from slavery to something as petty as a couple of small town swindlers. The Mississippi River was as routine as slavery and cotton plantations in this country's infancy;however, the significance of the Mississippi River cannot be measured, but it can be revealed.
Life on land was filled with many difficulties. There were many rules that Huck had to follow set by both the widow and his father. The widow’s main goal was to “civilize” Huck into a member of society. She expected Huck to go to school, wear clean clothes, sleep in his bed, and go to church. She just wanted him to be like a normal child of his age. Even though Huck bends the rules a bit and tries to sneak a smoke here and there, he eventually grows to like living under the widow’s protection. He proves this point when he says, "Living in a house, and sleeping in a bed, pulled on me pretty tight, mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods, sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a littl...
Rivers are often linked with freedom and growth, as they are vast and continuously moving and progressing. With no exception, Twain beautifully paints the Mississippi river as Huck and Jim’s safe haven from the rest of the country. They jump on the raft and get away from the society, as symbolizing the river as a place where they do not have to worry about being ridiculed by anyone who refuses to understand their situation. As Huck and Jim ran away from the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons, before setting out for their new journey Huck asserts, “I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all” (Twain 117). Clearly, the river rejuvenates Huck, he is tired of facing the society and all the injustices that it carries, but when he returns to the raft he once again felt free. While returning to their voyage, Huck illustrates the normal raft as something that holds grand scale to him and Jim. “Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfort...
for very long. Even with all the bad stuff going on at the river, it seems to be the only place that Clemens and Huck can find peace. The river even takes his evil father away from him for good. Through spending so much time with Jim, and all the experiences on the river, Huck reveals a strong sense of humanity (“Huck Finn Notes“). He showed this when he did everything he could to save the two murderers who fell off of the ship. Huck will always do everything that he can to help a person if they need it. Huck is a very clever character who always thinks his plans out, unlike Tom who just acts upon an idea.
In the novel, Huck's main goal is to get away from a terrible, abusive drunk of a father. Without the access of the Mississippi, Huck might not have ever escaped his father, and his father could have easily killed Huck. For Jim, who's goal was not only freedom, but to see his family again, the river was a free way to reach the free states. With Huck's fortune he could have bought a train ticket or paid another way to get to Cairo, but it was important for him to make his journey with Jim. In that time a black runaway slave could not have ridden on a train or even walked on land in the light of day without being caught in a matter of minutes.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an iconic novel that satirizes many of the romantic writers during it’s time. The main character, Huck, is a young boy who lives with a widow and her sister because of his father’s drunken stupors and abusive ways. When Pap comes to take Huck’s money, Huck gives it away, and out of anger for Huck’s indecency and civilized manners, Pap kidnaps Huck and takes him to live with him. Not long after Huck’s arrival, he escapes and fakes his death and floats towards Jackson Island. There he finds the widow’s runaway slave, Jim. Huck helps Jim escape the many threats of capture and in the end steals him from slavery. Within the novel, Mark Twain uses the topics of personal will, literal and figurative prisons, and the burden of an unequal society to advance the theme of freedom.
Freedom, the most blatant theme in the novel, takes on a different perspective for Huck, escaping a civilized lifestyle, and Jim, escaping being sold by Mrs. Watson. Huck is forced to adapt to Widow Douglass’ civilized lifestyle, but he perceives it as “rough living… when [he] couldn’t stand it no longer, [he] lit out… and was free and satisfied” (1). The struggle within the confines of both the Widow and his father are the reason he flees to the island. While the Widow sent him to school and taught him religion, Pap was a major threat to Huck’s security and he knew how to cleverly escape it. By playing a trick on his drunk, sleeping father in the shed, “Pretty soon [he] made it out” (41). He took a canoe downstream and once he arose, “there was Jackson Island” (42). This marks his first point of freedom now that Huck is successfully on his own. Jim, on the other hand, runs away before Mrs. Watson is able to sell him, separating him from his family. Similarly to Huck, when Jim hears the rumors he runs away to Jackson Island. When the island becomes unsafe, they set out on a raft down the Mississippi River. “ ‘You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft’ ” (128), said Huck. Huck and Jim now have no restrictions, they are able to be free and they no longer need to hide from anyone. On the river, Jim is labeled a runaway slave and fears that he will be caught. At ...
Freedom is what defines an individual, it bestows upon someone the power to act, speak, or think without externally imposed restraints. Therefore, enslavement may be defined as anything that impedes one’s ability to express their freedoms. However, complete uncompromised freedom is virtually impossible to achieve within a society due to the contrasting views of people. Within Mark Twain’s 1885 novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, numerous controversies are prevalent throughout the novel, primarily over the issue of racism and the general topic of enslavement. The characters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn along with their development take an unmistakable, resilient stand against racism and by doing such in direct relation against the naturalized views of society. Twain’s characters, Jim and Huck are at the focal point of this controversy; they together are enslaved in two particularly different forms, nevertheless they both pursue their freedoms from their enslavements. The development of these characters and the growth of their interdependent relationship generate the structure of the anti-racism message within this novel. Twain’s introductory warning cautions the dangers of finding motives, morals, or plots in his novel, ironically proving the existence of each and encourages the reader to discover them. One of the undisputable major themes that extensively peculated my mind as I read the text regarded the subject of freedom and enslavement. Through Twain’s constant contrasting of freedom and enslavement such as its portrayal of slavery in the form of life on land compared to the freedom on the raft on the Mississippi Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, suggests that people are subject to various ensl...
In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, freedom is portrayed from the perspective of two characters in the book: Huck Finn and an escaped slave, Jim. They travel together along the Mississippi River and their characters develop throughout the journey. Twain develops Huck’s character by the choices he makes as the novel progresses and he goes through many changes. Huck struggles with racial values that has been taught to him by the white adults in his life, they collide with the feelings he has towards Jim, a slave who gradually becomes his friend over the course of their journey down the river to freedom and is forced to reevaluate his point of view on slavery. There are many turning points in their relationship which contributes to Huck’s rejection of society’s false beliefs: when Huck promises Jim that he will not tell anyone that he has run away, when Huck decides to keep his promise despite what his conscience it telling him to do, and also when Huck decides to risk all the guilt he will feel by helping Jim find his freedom from is enslaved life. Twain uses the ideas of freedom in contrast to slavery, and civilization against modern society. These moments show Huck’s growth as an actual person, which corresponds along his isolation of rejection from society and its’ morals.
To escape this miserable fate, Huck soon fakes his own death and rides a stray canoe to Jackson’s island, where he later meets Jim, a runaway slave of Douglas’s, ironically. The two coexist for a time, but eventually catch wind that search parties are being sent for both of them, so they decide to board a stray raft and float down the river, away from St. Petersburg. The two hope to stop at the mouth of the Ohio River, where Jim can travel north to become a free man. They encounter many an interesting sight as well as close call along the way: a sinking steamboat with hostile robbers aboard, a group of slave-hunters in a thick fog (which causes them to float past the mouth of the Ohio), and a steamboat which splits their raft as well as their company with one another, as Huck ends up washing...