Huck Finn
"I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead" (221). Mark Twain's, "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," is a tale about a boy in search for a family and a place he can truly call home. Through his adventure, he rids himself of a father that is deemed despicable by society, and he gains a father that society hasn't even deemed as a man. This lonely and depressed young boy only finds true happiness when he is befriended with a slave named Jim. Although Huck Finn was born and raised into a racially oppressive society, it is through his personal growth that he realizes that the color of skin does not make a man, and he finds a father and true happiness in Jim. Disparity and loneliness are the tones that Twain quickly sets for his character Huck Finn. Twain makes Huck's isolation from society apparent for the reader immediately through a comment made from a respectable and pious woman, Widow Douglas, who has brought Huck to live with her in her home. "The Widow Douglas, she took me for her son [
]. And called me a poor lost lamb" (220). Although Huck has a safe and pleasant place to stay with the Widow, he is still truly lonely as he describes his yearnings for death. "I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead" (221). Twain continues to show this tone of disparity as Huck unconsciously relates many things around him to death, and continues to tell the reader that he is lonely. "I heard an owl [
]. Whowhooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was doing to die [
]. I did wish I had some company "(221). Although Huck gains companionship through his friend Tom and a group of boys, he still suffers from bouts of disparity as the boys isolate him. "Here's Huck [
] he hain't got no family [
]. They was going to rule me out because they said every boy must have a family [
]. I was most ready to cry" (224). This feeling of disparity and loneliness is reiterated to the reader because Huck will only be content