Huckleberry Finn Symbolism

Imagine almost dying on an adventure to save your friend then deciding to take another right afterward that is what happened to Huckleberry Finn. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, takes place in St. Petersburg, Missouri after Twain's previous novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book details Huckleberry Finn's journey along the Mississippi River to free a slave named Jim. Huck encounters Jim on Jackson's Island after faking his own death to avoid his enraged, drunk father, Pap. The story ends as Huck announces he is heading west after freeing Jim. Many scholars presented their cases supporting and opposing the method in which Twain ended his magnum opus. While the ending seems hurried and out of place from the previous

The best example of this appears during Jim's detainment at Phelps farm. Tom alerts Huck that "old Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she was ever going to sell him down the river ... she set him (Jim) free in her will" (Twain 217). The death and shame of Miss Watson ultimately represent the downfall of societies reign over Jim, who symbolizes Huck through his desire for control over his own actions. "Huck’s father [is a] prominent example of the hypocrisy of the whole man in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He is an abusive, racist, drunk old man devouted of most virtues. ... After having been arrested for drunk, yet again, and disorderly behaviour, he is taken into care by the same judge who awarded him custody of his son in an effort to make a 'man of him' (Twain 38). This endeavour fails miserably (Mattisson)." After his father is released again without any repercussions for his actions, even after the pleading by Judge Thatcher, Huck acknowledges that society inevitably will be hypocritical. Roy Harvey Pearce, one of the founders of the University of California San Diego's Literature Department, argues "Mark Twain projects the American's sense that somewhere, at some point ... it would indeed be possible to regain access to the truth, ...but in the present situation, Mark Twain despaired of that possibility and in Huck, his nature, and his history

Huck has always resented society as shown through his use of tobacco and artful cussing "knowing that they mean an overt repudiation of Miss Watson's meticulous world" (Neil Schmitz). Huck's rebellion against society is evident even at the earliest stage of his life. During their time at Jackson's Island, "Huck's instinctive sense of Jim as a person becomes clear; he can even bring himself to 'humble [himself] to a nigger' and not be sorry for it. ... He is conscience-stricken at realizing what helping Jim means, still he protects him" (Pearce 3). Huck's conscious choice to protect Jim, knowing it is illegal demonstrates an early form of development of Huck's morality. Robert C. Evans, Professor of English at Auburn University Montgomery and author of twenty books, expounds that when "Huck decides not to obey the conventional morality of his culture—which would dictate that he report the location of Jim, the runaway slave, to Miss Watson, Jim's owner—but instead decides to obey his own humane impulses (269–71), is a prime example of Huck's capacity for ideal civil disobedience." Millicent Bell, Assistant Professor of English at Brown University and journalist, explains at this point "Huck has climaxed his development toward a “free” morality" (Bell). Huck begins to see Jim as a person and resent the idea of slavery. Compared to the beginning of the story where he views