Freedom In Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic American novel that embodies the true meaning of freedom through symbolism and Huckleberry Finn’s journey through the atrocities of society. Huck experiences numerous encounters of how corrupt civilization can be on individuals which makes him desire to be free, rather than be adopted by Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas at the end of the novel. Freedom is also prominent in Jim’s personal Journey and the king and duke finally ending their scumbag lives. Huckleberry Finn and his runaway slave friend Jim both find themselves escaping from their initial lives at the beginning of the story and floating down the Mississippi river. As they float down the river, they make several stops which involve numerous encounters with different people that bring nothing but trouble to Huck and Jim. It is implied, but never explicitly stated, that the river is like the escape from society for Huck and Jim. “It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.”(Twain) This sentence describes how
when Huck and Finn are free from society, they enjoy life much more so than when they have to get in between a feuding family or help two low life scumbags lie and earn money. At the end of the novel, when Huck is offered an adoption by Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas, his decline of the offer indicates that he is ready to live a more freedom-oriented life as opposed to one where he is confined to a certain way to act. Having seen what society can do to an individual, Huck has matured enough to want to be away from that. “But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.” (Twain)
A more literal journey of freedom would be Jim’s journey to become a free man instead of a slave. The reason Jim ran away from Miss Watson in the first place was because he had heard she was going to sell him down the river to a master who would likely treat him worse. When him and Huck meet up, they decide they will go to Cairo, and then sail to the free states. “We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.” (Twain)
The final example of freedom in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the way that the “king” and the “duke” shape up their lives (to an extent) and escape from their previous scumbag ways.
When Huck and Jim pull over to pick berries, they are met by two men running away who join them on their raft and escape. They claim to be a duke and king that have faced hard times, but it is implied by Twain that they are really just losers who got in trouble with the law and then proceeded to lie to Huck and Jim in order to gain better treatment. The schemes they formulate as they adventure with Huck and Jim (though they are by no means nice or holy plans) show that they are willing to free themselves from their previous ways of life in order to pursue a life where at least they are doing something, even if it is
wrong.