Huckleberry Finn Chapter 5 Analysis (AS Level English)

1st October 2013

Analysis of Chapter 5 In Chapter 5 we see Huckleberry Finn come into contact with his worst fear – his father. Huck doesn’t seem to fear much or be scared of the consequences to any rules in the chapters previous to this, but by the sudden use to shorter sentences as soon as Chapter 5 begins, Mark Twain makes it apparent that Huck doesn’t have fond feelings of his father. The sudden use of these short sentences create an eirie feel for the reader, and also change the tone of the novel in a short space of time – Huck even admits he “used to be scared of him all the time” and he “was scared now.” Twain describes Huck’s dad as having “black” hair and “white” skin, these colours seem to be very severe and give you the impression of Huck’s dad as being as blunt and severe as these words, Twain doesn’t go into much detail when describing Huck’s dad and that can refer to Huck’s view on him. Huck isn’t fond of his dad and obviously doesn’t want to speak about him that much – this is reflected by the lack of description and he’s just “black” and “white”, there’s no colour surrounding the character and that reflects Huck’s negative emotions towards him. Huck’s dad fears that Huck believes he is superior to his dad with his “starchy clothes”, and it is clear Huck’s dad doesn’t like that Huckleberry Finn is educated and believes he is superior. As his dad wasn’t educated he doesn’t see the need for Huck to be educated, “you think you’re better than your father, now, don’t you?” He almost seems annoyed that Huck thinks he’s superior, as he wants to be the superior one in their relationship. He wants Huck to stop going to school and stop learning about religion and he even enforces this by tearing up one of his school books, this seems like an attempt to show Huck he is the superior one in the relationship and he shouldn’t do anything his dad isn’t happy with, in this case – school. His father also demands money, luckily Huck gave his money to the Judge, so he “hain’t got no money.” However, his dad knew he was lying – the money is the obvious motive as to why he has returned to Huck’s life and even Huck seems to be clued in on this. But, Huck’s dad still takes a dollar that Huck got off Judge Thatcher to go and buy himself whiskey. The next day, he went to Judge Thatcher drunk and demanded Huck’s money for himself; “he swore he’d make the law force him.” The Widow and the Judge go to try and gain custody of Huckleberry Finn – this show’s they wanted to protect him from his father, who was clearly a hazard. However, there was a new judge in town and he didn’t want to “interfere and separate families if they could help it”, although, Huckleberrys father ends up in jail after his drunken binge. The new judge, who previously turned down the widow and the judge’s plea to take custody of Huck, takes Huck’s father home and attempts to reform him and even though he repents, it doesn’t take long for him to get drunk again. This shows he’s not committed and would say anything to get himself out of trouble – it also gives you the idea he’d say anything to Huck in order to get the money he so desperately wanted and knew Huck had. But, the new judge decides the only way to reform him is with a shotgun, but Huck doubts him and believes “he didn’t know no other way.” This gives the reader the idea that Huck still had faith in his father after everything that had happened.