Huckleberry Finn’s Search For Freedom
Mark Twain describes in his novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the journey of Huck a young boy and Jim a runaway slav, both heading to freedom down the Mississippi. Huck is determined to escape his old life. Jim, on the other hand, wants to free his family from slavery and escape. Huck is determined to escape “civilization” after the experiences he’s had on land and in the water throughout the novel. Twain uses this to show his lack of faith in humanity and society. Huck refuses to be “civilized” by a society that is so cruel.
Huck, who grew up in an abusive household, sees early the cruelty of human nature. Huck doesn’t consider his violent and abusive father to be an important part of his life. “Pap he wasn’t seen in over a yea, which was fine with me. I didn’t care to see him anymore.” He would always try to get me drunk and he could do that. I avoided him most of the time. Huck feared him and recognized the evil in his character. Huck was fleeing his abusive father when he decided to run away. Huck did not want to be a part of a society where his abusive father was allowed to take care of him. Huck noticed the cruelty of other societies, even among well-respected families.
Huck learned of the Sheperdsons and Grangerfords’ long-standing feud after meeting them. Huck realised that the feud was inhumane when he learned more. Buck says, “A feud works this way: A person has a quarrel and kills another; the brother of that man then kills THAT man; the brothers from both sides then go for each other; and finally, all the cousins are killed, and the feud ends. It takes time, but it is a very slow process.” (Ch.18). Both families were regarded as respectable, high society families. They were deemed “civilized”. Huck didn’t understand how men could kill each other without thinking about a problem from many years back, but everyone else did. Huck was the only one who saw the violence and thought it was absurd. Huck was even more shocked by the lack of compassion shown by the “Duke”, “Dauphin” and other members of the society.
Huck recognized the fakes when he met the Duke and Dauphin. They were always lying and swindling people in order to make money. The two conmen were slapped with a tarnish when a town heard from another that they had been scammed by the Duke. Huck felt bad about the two conmen, even though he had seen their deceit and lies. It made me sick. I felt sorry for those poor, pitiful rascals. I didn’t feel anything against them anymore. It was horrifying to watch. “Humans can be cruel.” (Ch. Huck felt bad for the Dauphin and Duke, but he knew they would be punished and caught soon. Twain has shown us his pessimism by the end of the novel. Twain has already given the readers a chance for them to see just how cruel Duke and Dauphin are. Now Twain allows the reader to see the cruelty of the rest society, those who were scammed. He’s suggesting that criminals as well as victims are basically the same. Both are cruel, selfish and insensitive.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explains Huck’s quest to run away from society. Huck became aware of the violence people engage in even when they have no idea why. Huck was shocked to see that criminals and victims were treated with the same cruelty.
