Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Analysis of Major Characters
"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," written by Mark Twain, features a rich tapestry of characters that illuminate themes of race, morality, and the complexities of human relationships in pre-Civil War America. The protagonist, Huck Finn, is a young boy who seeks freedom and adventure while navigating the societal norms of his time. His journey down the Mississippi River with Jim, a runaway slave, serves as a backdrop for exploring issues of friendship, conscience, and the moral dilemmas faced by individuals in a racially divided society.
Huck's practical nature contrasts sharply with his imaginative friend Tom Sawyer, who embodies the romanticized notions of adventure. The character of Jim, despite his initial portrayal as superstitious and subservient, emerges as a deeply caring figure who profoundly impacts Huck's understanding of loyalty and humanity. Other characters, such as Huck's abusive father Pap and the swindlers King and Duke, introduce elements of conflict and societal critique, further enriching the narrative.
Through this cast of characters, Twain crafts a story that not only entertains but also encourages readers to reflect on themes of justice, identity, and the moral choices that define one's character. The interplay between these figures highlights the struggle between societal expectations and personal ethics, making "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" a timeless exploration of the human experience.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Mark Twain
First published: 1884 (1885; United States); revised new edition, 2001
Genre: Novel
Locale: Plot: Mid-nineteenth century
Time: On and around the Mississippi River
Huckleberry Finn, a small-town boy living along the banks of the Mississippi River before the American Civil War. Perhaps the best-known youthful character in world fiction, Huck has become the prototype of the boy who lives a life that all boys would like to live; he also helped to shape such diverse characters as Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams and J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield. He makes an adventurous voyage with the slave Jim, drifting down the Mississippi on a raft. When he contrasts himself with his flamboyant and wildly imaginative friend Tom Sawyer, Huck feels somewhat inadequate, but deep inside he has a triumphant reliance on the power of common sense. Thus the world of Huck's real-ity—his capture by and escape from old drunken Pap; the macabre pageant of his townsfolk searching the Mississippi for his supposedly drowned body; his encounters with the King and the Duke, two preposterous swindlers; his stay among the feuding Grangerfords and Shepherdsons; and his defense of the pure, benighted Wilks sisters—is proved to be far more imaginative than Tom Sawyer's imagination. Yet Huck is not some irresponsible wanderer through adolescence; he has a conscience. He knows it is illegal to be harboring a runaway slave, but his friendship with Jim makes him defy the law. His appreciation of the ridiculous allows him to go along with the lies and swindles of the King and the Duke until they seem ready to bring real harm to the Wilks sisters, and he himself will fib and steal to get food and comfort; but his code of boyhood rebels at oppression, injustice, hypocrisy. Mark Twain has created in Huckleberry Finn a magnificent American example of the romanticism that rolled like a great wave across the Atlantic in the nineteenth century.
Jim, the black slave of Miss Watson. Believing that he is about to be sold down the river for eight hundred dollars, he runs away and hides on Jackson's Island, where Huck also takes refuge after faking his own murder in order to escape from Pap. Ignorant, superstitious, gullible, Jim is nevertheless, in Huck's words, “most always right; he had an uncommon level head, for a nigger.” He will laugh at everything comical, but he suffers poignantly when he thinks of the family he has left in bondage. He protects Huck physically and emotionally, feeling that the boy is the one white person he can trust, never suspecting that Huck is struggling with his conscience about whether to turn Jim in. When the two companions encounter the King and the Duke, Jim is completely taken in by their fakery, though at one point he asks, “Don't it sprise you, de way dem kings carries on, Huck?” Typically, Jim is subservient to and patient with whites. Even when Tom Sawyer arrives at the Phelpses, where Jim has been caught and held, he goes through Tom's complicated and romantic ritual of escape with grumbling good nature. Jim is a sensitive, sincere man who seems to play his half-comic, half-tragic role in life because he is supposed to play it that way.
Tom Sawyer, Huck's friend, who can, with a lively imagination stimulated by excessive reading, turn a raid by his gang on a Sunday school picnic into the highway robbery of “a wholeparcelofSpanishmerchantsandrichA-rabs…with two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand sumter'mules, all loaded down with di'monds….” He is a foil to the practicality of Huck; he is the universal boy-leader in any small town who can sway his gang or his pal into any act of fancy, despite all grumbling and disbelief. His ritual for the rescue of the captured Jim (who he knows has already been set free by Miss Watson's last will) is a masterful selection of details from all the romantic rescues of fact and fiction.
Pap, Huck's father and the town drunkard. When he learns that Huck has been awarded in trust a share of the money derived from the box of gold found in the robber's cave, he shows up one night at Huck's room at the Widow Douglas'. He takes the pledge and stays in the widow's spare room. Finding that Huck's share of the money is legally beyond his reach, he breaks the pledge and creates such havoc in the room that “they had to take soundings before they could navigate it.” Pap kidnaps his son, keeping him prisoner in an old cabin. He then proceeds to go on a classic drunk, followed by a monumental case of delirium tremens: snakes in abundance crawl all over him, and one bites his cheek, though Huck, of course, can see nothing. The boy finally makes his escape from Pap by killing a pig and leaving bloody evidence of a most convincing murder. Pap's end in life is discovered by Jim: a dead body in a flooded boat on the Mississippi.
The King and The Duke, two rapscallions and confidence men with whom Huck and Jim join up on their trip down the Mississippi. Their so-called play, “The Royal Nonesuch,” finally leads to their just deserts: tarring, feathering, and riding out of town on a rail.
The Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, unsuccessful reformers of Huck after he comes into his fortune.
Aunt Polly, Tom Sawyer's relative, who at the end of the story sets straight the by-now complicated identities of Huck and Tom.
The Grangerfords and The Shepherdsons, two feuding families. Huck spends some time with the Grangerfords, who renew the feud when a Grangerford daughter elopes with a young Shepherdson.
Mr. Phelps and Mrs. Phelps, at whose farm the captured Jim is confined until Tom arrives to effect his “rescue.”
Mary Jane, Susan, and Joanna Wilks, three sisters whom the King and the Duke set out to bilk; Huck thwarts the connivers.
Judge Thatcher, “the law” who protects Huck's interests.