Huck Finn

6 Pages 1511 Words

The Adventures of Hucklebery Finn has many recognizable features which have helped sustain its reputation as a classic over the years, and among one of the most important of these features is the Mississippi river. It carries Huck and Jim upon a winding path through a series of adventures. The river provides symbolization for many important aspects integral to the novel's theme. These aspects include the journey to freedom and subsequent struggle for freedom and Huck’s morals, attitudes, and irrepressible nature.
The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is constructed around the 2,350 mile long Mississippi River. Huckleberry Finn, a misunderstood outcast from society, is unhappy with his new life of morality and cleanliness since being adopted by Widow Douglas. In conjunction with that, his drunken bum of a father reappears into his life, subsequently gains custody of him, kidnaps him and beats him. This begins the struggle of Huck’s journey to freedom. He realizes that the river is the ultimate symbol of and tool to his independence and a better life. Huck has never been good at answering to anyone but himself; the river allows for him to be completely responsible for nothing and no one. He fakes his own death and escapes, where he meets a runaway slave named Jim. Huck knows that the baggage of being responsible for another person during his excursion, particularly a runaway slave, is dangerous and cumbersome, but takes him a long anyway because he is a good person at heart. So, “The two set off together on a raft down the Mississippi, intending to turn up the Ohio River to freedom” () The Mississippi was such a widely used river that being surreptitious was imperative to the success of the journey-they could only travel at night in fear of somebody seeing the runaway Jim, which posed time and location constraints on the two fugitives. () “... described how the idea of freedom germinated” Huck Finn, having ...