Huck Finn

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How Huck Grows as a Person
Huck is a poor and dirty boy who is often homeless. He emanates from the lowermost ranks of white society. Huck’s father is called Pap. Pap is a drunk and a hooligan who disappears for a long time. The society fails to protect Huck from his father. Huck misses school and religious teachings. Middle-class boys have well trained on social values that Huck is not aware of. A widow called Douglas who is living with her sister adopts Huck. At Douglas’s house, Huck finds a new life. He is in a clean environment where people have manners. Widow Douglas takes Huck to school to learn what he has missed. Huck is also taken to the church at least to understand social values. However, Huck resists the changes and upholds his autonomous ways. Huck’s adventures as he moves down the river helps him learn many lessons. He grows a conscience that makes him feel for humanity. Therefore, all lessons that Huck learns during his quest for adventure and freedom helps him advance as a person.
In his adventure, Huck finds a robber’s stash of gold, and he gains much money. While in Widow Douglas’ home, his father Pap appears in town and demands money from his son Huck. One Judge decides to reform Pap who unfortunately retains his old behavior. Huck can read and bear Douglas trials to change him. Pap dangles everywhere in the town harassing Huck. When Widow Douglas realizes that Huck is resisting change, she forces him out of her house. At this time, Pap is still in the town and gets an opportunity to find his son Huck.

When he is drunk, Pap beats his son hard. Pap tells Huck “Don’t you give me none o’ your lip,” says he. “You’ve put on considerable many frills since I been away. I’II take you down a peg before I get done with you. You’re educated, too, they say-can read and write. You think you’re better’n your father, now, don’t you, because he cant’t? I’LL take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut’n foolishness,hey?-who told you you could?” (Twain and Elliott 56). Huck thinks that his father’s beating will never end. The boy decides to escape from the hands of his father. He kills a pig and spreads the pig’s blood in the cabin. Huck does this to pretend that he is dead. While in the Mississippi river, on Jackson’s island, Huck sees people looking for his body.
When he is on the island for some days, Huck meets Watson’s slave by the name Jim. Jim is running away from Watson because he realizes that Watson has the plan to sell him to a person who owns a plantation. A plantation found down the river. Jim understands that he would be mistreated and separated from his family if he is sold. Therefore, this prompts him to run away. Jim wonders why some people are enslaved if people are all equal. Jim says “Well, it’s a blame ridicklous way, en I doan’ want to hear no mo’ ‘bout it; Dey ain’ no sense in it” (Twain and Elliott 39). Coincidently, Huck and Jim meet while each of them is running away searching for freedom. They both join hands as they stay on the island. Due to strong wind, Mississippi river flood. Jim and Huck see a house and a raft floating. They decide to get the raft and proceed to loot the house. They find a man’s body in the house. A woman claims that Jim is hiding on the island because her husband could see smoke. Anyone who finds Jim is to be rewarded. After realizing that Jim might be caught, Huck and Jim decide to leave the island. They use a raft down the river. Huck and Jim are determined to reach the states where no slavery is allowed. On their way, they meet with robbers and manage to escape with what the robbers have looted. Again, Jim and Huck meet with people looking for slaves who escaped. Huck lies to them that his father is suffering a disease called smallpox. The men sympathize with Huck and let them proceed. Huck and Jim separate but later meet. The two manage to rescue men who are followed by armed bandits. The two men, Duke and Dauphin, accompany Jim and Huck down the river.
Duke and Dauphin pretend to be Peter Wilks’s sons and decide to liquidate Wilks’s brother’s inheritance. They are welcome by Wilks’s nieces since they don’t know the real Wilks’s brothers. Huck, however, decides to stop the scam. He takes Wilks’s gold from Duke and Dauphin and then he explains the events to Mary Jane who is Wilks sister. Duke and Dauphin escape after Huck’s exposure. Unfortunately, the two men decide to sell Jim as a prisoner to a farmer. When Huck finds Jim, he decides to help him. Surprisingly, Jim is a prisoner to people that Huck knows. Jim is freed though he gets back to the prison as he nurses Tom’s leg. Tom claims that Jim has been free because, before her death, Miss Watson gave the will to free Jim. When they were on the island, Jim did not allow Huck to see the face of the man they found dead. Now Jim tells Huck that his father is the one they found on the floating house and therefore might reappear. Huck is reformed since he can apologize to a black man. Huck says “It was fifteen minutes before I would work myself up to go and humble myself to nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way”( Twain and Elliott 73). Huck is worried about his future and Aunt Sally decides to adopt him.
Huck, therefore, has learned many things during his adventure and search for freedom. He faces challenges and finds solutions for them. Some solutions are good while others are not. Making mistakes and learning through experience and in the hard ways improves Huck. Huck understands the world and how the society operates, abandons racism and thus reforming and improving as a person.
Works Cited
Twain, Mark, and Emory Elliott. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Oxford UP, 1999.