What Is Water Symbolism In Huckleberry Finn

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an American classic novel by Mark Twain written in 1884. The novel about a young boy named Huckleberry Finn ventures throughout the Mississippi River on a raft with a runaway slave named Jim. A quote from Magill states, “it is on shore that Huck encounters the worst excesses of which ‘the damned human race’ is capable, but with each return to the raft comes a renewal of spiritual home and idealism.” Mark Twain in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn uses symbolism in the novel to convey Huck’s ideal Utopian society on the river, and Devilish society traveling through the land. Similarly, Twain uses life scenarios in the novel to convey these two coexisting universes. (Focus on good of the water and bad of the land, the divide)

In chapter 19, Huck and Jim are on a solo excursion in the canoe where Huck encounters two con men. Huck says,”Here is the way we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there - sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up - nearly always in the dead water under a tow-head; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows and hid the raft with them” (119). This quote shows Hucks interpretation of the river -being full of clarity, freedom and tranquility. In addition, Huck restates that the raft is his safe area as he drifts along the river with Jim. The explorers feel they can adventure without strict guidelines to follow. This represents Huck’s sense of civilization on the raft with his partner Jim giving him