False Names In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the main character takes on multiple false names for practical reasons, such as finding information, covering up a separate lie, or to deceive someone. Originally Huck was the mischievous and uncivilized son of the town drunk. After fabricating his death and escaping his situation, he refers to himself with a different alias for each new predicament he finds himself in. When he finds his setting upsetting or dangerous, he picks up and leaves on the river, fleeing whatever occurred to make him do so. Throughout the novel, Twain uses the motif of Huck’s aliases to show how the name he uses at any certain point represents his emotions, reactions, and development of his overall identity at the time.

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He was nervous returning to his place of origin because he feared being discovered. When Huck enters the house of the newcomer, he identifies himself as Mary Williams. As she relays information to him, he became “so uneasy [he] couldn’t set still.” When asked again, he tells her his name is “Sarah Mary Williams” then after being outed as a male, “George Peters”. The changes in Huck’s false names show how his personal identity is still jumbled and has yet to be sorted out. He finds himself in this state shortly after faking his own death and leaving his father to be accused of it. Mark Twain uses Huck’s aliases to express his uneasiness and anxiety at the beginning of his journey, when his fugitive-like status was

When he abandons the alias and moves on, it shows he is leaving behind part of him and growing mentally like a snake shedding its skin and replacing it with a newer and stronger layer. Each name represents something about Huck’s identity at the time. For example, Huck is disillusioned and not confident while interacting with Judith Loftus so he uses two aliases, one being a girl and one being a boy. These are the furthest from his true self, Huckleberry Finn. As he and Jim grow closer, he uses an alias that is male and has had a family, George Jackson, which is closer to the real Huck. He goes by “Tom Sawyer” with Aunt Sally and her family towards the end of the novel. By this point, Huck has gone through many strange and moving experiences, and has developed his morals, confidence, and relationships with his companions. In the last chapter, he is revealed to be Huckleberry Finn and owns up to it. This represents the most stability and furthest development Huck has throughout his entire journey. By using his true name instead of a far-off alias, Huck has changed from an unsure, morally skewed and anxious adolescent to an adult mentally and morally. He is sure of many more aspects of his life than he was at the beginning of his travels and developed his identity enough to have personal thoughts and opinions on what is right from wrong,