Huck Finn Literary Analysis

“‘Not suitable for trash’ was the opinion of the Concord, Massachussetts, librarians who banned it in 1885. Nearly 130 years since then, this novel has been challenged, defended, banned, expurgated and bowdlerized numerous times by parents, educators, publishers and librarians” (Ruta 1). Attack, defense, and debate over the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, has raged on since its publication. Numerous questionable topics in the novel have caused the widespread banning or censorship of book, especially in libraries. Criticism includes the polarizing culmination of Huckleberry Finn’s exploits. Although the book features unrealistic character regression, Huck Finn’s ending was appropriate because it allocates space for further social commentary on slavery and Romanticism. The seemingly ineffective ending to Huck Finn served to mock or invoke change in the practices of
slavery or racism. After Jim, Huck, and Tom escape the belligerent farmers that guarded Jim’s room, Jim and Huck discover Tom’s bullet wound. Jim demands to stay put until Tom receives medical assistance because Jim knows that Tom will voluntarily refuse help. At that moment, Huck “...knowed [sic] he was white inside” (Twain 207) with the care and thought spent for Tom’s health. Although Twain placed the story in a time of slavery and segregation, he lets Huck accept Jim as an equal. Twain uses Huck to set an example and to support social adjustment opposing slavery. Jim, a slave in the southern United States during the Antebellum era, longed to recapture his enslaved family. Jim’s slave status inhibited his aspirations until the end of the book, where Jim learns how Miss Watson had “...set him free in her will” (Twain 217). Miss Watson felt guilt for her consideration of selling Jim further south, where slaves had fewer freedoms. Twain used Miss Watson as a respectable character who encouraged imitation in objecting against racism or slavery. Twain could not convey Huck Finn’s message of condemning slavery without an extended conclusion. The conclusion of Huck Finn did not only promote adjustment pertaining to slavery but also the exaggerated Romantic movement.
The king and the duke duplicitously sold away Jim to the Phelps’ for a slight profit while Huck was distracted. During Jim’s breakout from the Phelps’ hut, Huck devised a simple plan of stealing keys from the superstitious slave; Tom, however, proposed a complicated scheme, even wanting “...to saw Jim’s leg off” (Twain 181) instead of simply lifting the bed and removing the chains. Tom reads the exaggerated Romantic novels and develops his ludicrous escape plan using their methods. Tom explains his farcical logic through the Romantic example. Tom wanted to dig under Jim’s cabin of imprisonment with a set of knives, claiming how “...prisoners in... the Castle Deef [sic]” (Twain 184) dug through solid rock in a related situation, which Tom wished to imitate. Though misspelled, Tom references The Count of Monte Cristo as a model of his ambitions. through the ending of Huck Finn, Twain uses Tom to satirize the silly, overzealous, yet popular Romantic
novels.
With the benefits brought by the conclusion of Huck Finn, poignant arguments contradict its relevance. Critics protest the apparent regression in Huck’s character when he encounters Tom at the Phelps’ farm. When Tom attempts to release Jim, he laments having “...to invent all [emphasis added] the difficulties” (Twain 180). Although Huck has devised a simple plan, he still follows Tom’s overzealous, outrageous plan. Huck has demonstrated intelligence and individuality, but still serves a secondary role to Tom. Despite criticism over Huck’s lack of progression, Huck would realistically submit to the demands of Tom. Even when Huck was formulating strategies under his own influence, he considers Tom, acknowledging that Tom would have “...throwed [sic] more style into it” (Twain 147). Even when Huck developed on his own without Tom’s influence, he considered Tom as inspiration. Huck idolizes Tom throughout the novel, seeing him as a sort of hero. Huck, a juvenile and impressionable teenager, has justification for an apparent regression in character when under Tom’s guidance.
The tale contains a suitable conclusion to the escapades of Huckleberry Finn. Huck Finn ends with recurring themes regarding adjustment or termination of slavery and Romanticism movements. While Huck succumbs to the leadership of Tom during Jim’s final getaway, he revered Tom throughout the novel and realistically accompanied Tom’s decisions. Numerous interpretations of the story may cause relevant discussion to continue unceasingly.