Acc. English 4th hour
Mrs. Webster
September 1, 2011
Huckleberry Finn After reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, I have learned this book is a great example of a coming-of-age novel. The main character, also known as the narrorator, Huck Finn faces many challenges throughout the course of the novel. A major challenge Huck faces is that his father, Pap is an alcoholic lowlife and he doesn’t care for him as a son should care for his father. In the beginning of the novel, Huck thought he would be better off without his father even though he lived with Miss. Watson. He didn’t care if his father died because Huck had never experienced death and how it felt. Later in the novel Huck abandons his father and left on the raft to Jackson island. When Huck and Jim find a house flooded down the river, Jim sees Pap and doesn’t let Huck see him for Huck’s sake. Throughout the novel, Huck experiences death at many occasions and now knows how it feels. Later in the novel, Jim tells Huck that his father won’t be coming back to St. Petersburg anymore. Huck wonders why, and Jim tells him his father was the one who died in the house. This shows Huck has seen death and actually cares what happened to his father. …show more content…
Also, Huck meeting the Duke and Dauphin causes Huck to come of age.
Huck starts off as an immature boy who joins a gang with Tom Sawyer and other kids. the gang wants to steal from innocent people and kill them because they didn’t see killing as a problem. Once Huck met the duke and the dauphin, everything changed. The duke and dauphin lied to Huck to earn his trust and think they’re good people. Later in the novel, Huck discovers that the duke and dauphin are no-good con artists that steal and lie and this helps the maturing process of Huck. Huck realized stealing is wrong so he steals what the Duke and Dauphin stole, hid it and told Mary Jane where she could find it so it could go to the rightful
owner. Finally, the time Huck spent with Jim makes Huck come of age. In the beginning of the novel, Huck accepts slavery because it is so common in St. Petersburg. He hates Jim in the beginning of the book and thinks of him like all whites do. During the course of the novel, Huck learns Jim has feelings and is just like any white person, he is just discriminized because of his skin color. All of these are reasons why this novel is coming of age.