Growth In Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

Growth Spurts
Aging is an inevitable process of growth. Growing up can be viewed in a physical or metaphorical sense as seen in the bildungsroman story, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The protagonist, Huckleberry Finn, and Jim, a runaway slave, travel down the Mississippi to escape their struggles and assert their independence. Twain uses the major theme of growing up to portray metaphorical character growth or lack thereof, molding the characters of Huckleberry Finn, the duke and king, and Jim, alluding to the growing pains of America.
Initially in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn, the main character, is depicted as a rambunctious child, who refuses to ‘sivilize’ himself. Through his early behavior in the book, it
appears as though Huck Finn is the essence of problematic as he hangs out with other young hooligans, disobeys his elders, and refuses to conform to society.
Twain counters the reader’s view when Huck questions the importance of going to Heaven: “I couldn’t see no advantage in going [to Heaven]” (Twain 13). Twain highlights Huckleberry’s maturity through his delinquency. Through his unwillingness to conform to society and questioning the early American Christian beliefs, Huck develops an early sense of identity, a characteristic few adults acquire in life. Twain implies the America Dream, an idea that prosperity and success can be achieved through hard work, can be obtained by being an outcast. An outcast can provide different views by questioning other’s motives and standards, like Huck does; these views may be to just get one step further, opposed to someone who conforms to society. Huck’s maturity and character growth is shown when Pap, Huck’s father, continually threatens him to make him quit school. Huck continues to go to school, despite the threats, to learn. Huck’s point of view on education shifts from avoidant to yearning. Even still,
Huck’s tries spite his father by attending school; consequently, he uncovers newfound maturity through his puerility towards his father. Huck betters himself, despite the negative parental influences Pap provides. Twain parallels Huck to an individual working towards the solace the American dream promises. Twain suggests the dream is solely individual and cannot be achieved with the aid of other people, even though people are obstacles in its achievement. Thus, Twain successfully correlates Huck’s growth to his personal beliefs on the American dream attainment.
Mark Twain also uses the growth of Jim, a slave that accompanies Huckleberry on his adventures down the Mississippi, to question the American Dream. As an African American in an antebellum southern state, Jim is victim of racism. Jim escapes the metaphorical chains bounding him in the heavily racist southern states in the end of the story. Jim was unknowingly free early in the story, but Tom Sawyer, a boy who accompanied Huck and Jim in their later travels, kept the secret to create adventure. This threatened both Huck and Jim’s freedom by prolonging the end of their journey. By keeping Jim’s freedom secret, Twain suggests that many American already have obtained the dream, but are too ignorant realize it. Americans are too caught up in obtaining an ideal, they forget to stop and see how far they came. In addition, Twain subtly comments on the American dream through Jim’s skin color. Even though Jim is not a white American, Jim still achieves his dream of freedom, entailing the American dream is a feasible goal for any American, regardless of race or ethnicity. Therefore, Twain uses Jim to point out universality of the American dream, regardless of race, ethnicity and ignorance.
To counter the feasibility of the American dream, one may point out the self-proclaimed duke and Pap. The duke, a social low-life, scams people for a living with his accompaniment “friend”, the king, who is an implied fake. Together they attempt to scam a family out of a large bag of gold coins, ultimately failing due to Huck’s involvement. They fail to achieve their version of the American “Dream”. After a heavy argument and downing bottles of alcohol, the duke and king are “thick as thieves again” as they discuss plans for future scams (Twain 260). Though never achieving the desired outcome from that scam, they are content, proving they already achieved their dream of scamming. It follows the claim that the American dream is unfeasible for some, and is false for them in the end.
Growing pains are the dreary rains before dazzling rainbows