The Adventures of Huckberry Finn

                                                                                         Cameron Gramlow

                                                                                        10-11-2015

      The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huck Finn is an adventurous novel that shows the best and worst of the time period in which this was written. Huck struggled at home with an abusive father that was never really there for him, plus he was adventurous and kind of a troublemaker. These examples lead to an exciting adventure that can’t be topped.

The structure of this book is a very common one. This story is pretty easily broken up into three sections. In the first section, most of it is focused on character development, primarily of Huck and his lifestyles. Huck is quite unique and he knows it. He is very proud of his differences. And, it is easy to see these differences when Huck is compared to Tom. Also, Huck has a salty, dry sense of humor that he uses especially when he’s talking about Miss Watson. This first section ends with Huck on the run after he fakes his own murder.

The second, and longest, section of this book has Huck and a slave named Jim running for their lives. The strange thing is that they are running from different things, but they still stay together and are a great team. Huck is running away from civilization and his past life, while Jim is running away from slavery. In this section we are able to meet Jim as a human rather than a slave. It is quite clear what a pleasant life they are having on the river, but they are having a dimmer and dimmer view of human nature. This is the section in which we come to understand why Huck wants to get away from the civilized world. The section ends when he goes to Uncle Silas' farm to find Jim. In the final section, Huck is back in civilized society, so solidly that he's living with Tom Sawyer's relatives. Once Tom shows up, he sort of steals the show. It’s more about Tom and less about Huck or Jim. Jim becomes little more than a stage prop, and Huck is an observer, as Tom once again steals center stage.

Is that last section out of place in the novel, as some people charge? After winning our sympathy for Jim, did Twain make a mistake in letting Tom treat him like a piece of furniture, and in letting Huck go along just because of Tom's forceful personality?

Or, did Twain have a good reason for including that long third section? Some writers have said he did. One of the explanations they offer is that Twain wanted to give Huck a chance actually to walk out on civilized society. To make that possible, Twain had to get Huck back into the world, and to show how that world contrasted with the one Huck was looking for.^[1]

        There are many ways you can tell a story. Mark Twain decided to tell this story in the narrative voice. This voice is the one of Huck Finn. For the entire book he is the one telling the tale. It’s like we are visitors to his mind. I believe that Twain chose Huck Finn to be the narrator of this book because this book is all about him. He goes through the largest turmoil, so it would be odd to have anyone else be the voice of the story, and in the nature of Twain, he likes having his main character be the narrator.  

        I believe that this book was written for a specific audience, and I believe that special audience is teens in adolescence. There is no book, in my opinion that has a better story line for teens to be able to relate too. Huck struggled to be civilized and living at home. Throughout the book he is a bit of a rebel. This quality is perfect for the teens of the 21st century because it seems like we as a society have forgotten our roots. Huck knew his roots and simply wanted to go back to them without his dad or anyone else telling him how to live his life. This in no way means that the audience is allowed to do whatever they want and run away, this means that Huck knew who he was and what he had to do to make him happy, and I believe that we should all do whatever makes us happy and not feel like we have to please society or the civilization around us. Through the physiological breakdown of Huck, we can see how primitive he truly was. All he ever wanted was to live life to the fullest, and he felt like he was being cheated out of that, so he ran. This act caused him serious trouble along the way, but it also taught him a valuable lesson, and I think that Mark Twain was really focusing this book to be meant for a teen or young adult audience. Twain wanted to show us how freeing it was to be a kid and sometimes we need to let go of technology or society, or whatever is holding us back, and just live free and live happy.