Required Reading: “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Tawin

By Justin Wymer
St. Albans High School

It’s been part of English syllabi since seventh grade, but only now, as a senior in AP English, am I discovering why Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is considered the quintessential American classic.

The book starts with a drawl.

The protagonist, Huck, regretfully under the guidance of a widow because his town drunk father and absent mother are inept, expresses disdain at having to be “sivilized.”

“The widow Douglas she took me for her son and allowed she would sivilize me...”

Passages such as these reflect Huck’s character by showing how he despises all things sophisticated, clean and proper. To him, education and rules are more pestilent than the devil, in whom he’s not even sure he believes.

He prefers to flounder around in the mud or to start trouble with best friend Tom Sawyer, whom he idolizes for his craftiness. The pair lives in a rural community along the banks of the Mississippi River, where they thwart authority and continually prove to be a troublesome duo whose mayhem makes townsfolk reel.

It is Huck’s adventurous spirit, quite like Tom’s, that prompts him to engage upon the novel’s central journey.

In the end, it is Huck — and Huck alone — who voyages with the widow’s runaway slave, Jim, down the Mississippi. Jim searches for liberation in the free states, but Huck is trying to escape his past.

In early chapters, Huck is kidnapped by his father and locked in a cabin. Forced to sit for days, trapped for hours while his father is out, he constructs a plan to make it seem as though he was kidnapped and murdered.

His plan works masterfully.

Huck escapes, grabs a canoe and sets off down the river. While camping on an island, hiding, he encounters Jim, who travels with him for the rest of his perilous journey. The two encounter a King and escort a French duke. Huck even dresses as a girl who throws rocks at rats.

One aspect of the novel that I consider important is the slow erosion of the mental barriers set by society upon Huck. He has been taught to believe slaves are below his class, so it comes as a surprise when he befriends Jim, forms a fraternal love with him and relinquishes his upbringing’s teachings when he sets Jim free.

Themes of fear, loss, repentance, hope and the death of childhood all lie nestled in the pages of “Huckleberry Finn.” Such ideas are universal, but they aren’t as cosmic as those found in other works (like “Hamlet”).

That’s why I think it’s ridiculous for critics to say that Huck’s journey is symbolic of life, with the river being a third main character. That’s a bit much. Twain even says in the book’s first pages that this novel is an adventure story, nothing more.

“Huck Finn” is obviously well written, even if it is crowded with misspelled words. (It’s written in vernacular, which is the common language of a given group.) Twain weaves social vices and moral insight onto single pages.

It’s not my favorite book - not even close - but it’s a necessary block if one wishes to build literary knowledge. Read it, and you might find out why.