Huckleberry Finn Journey Analysis

The Journey

Reading has always been an important part of my life. It was something I could turn to for an escape to my reality, but I could have never imagined the impact one book would have. I remember in being assigned a literary analysis essay of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn in tenth grade. I began by thinking the assignment would be easy because I had already read the book a couple of years earlier. I was completely wrong. This book wound up changing my entire life; It appealed to my empathy and I realized a horrible mistake I had made every day without even knowing it.

While re-reading the book and working on the assignment, my teacher challenged me to identify the themes and other literary elements. Through this I began to really understand the author’s purpose. I learned about the injustices people suffered through simply because they were different, and that hate was and still is so easy to teach. I remember
seeing unkind acts as a child, people whispering nasty comments about someone’s interracial relationship, or name-calling, and even other kids at school excluding someone from a game because of the color of their skin, but not realizing at the time how big of an impact the smallest actions can have. I just followed along because that was what everyone else was doing. Society planted the seed of hate, not just in me, but in most of the children around me. The way Mark Twain showed things from the perspective of a child is what really affected me the most. ‘Huck’ was confronted with very hard choices though out their entire journey, but he had taken the time to learn more about ‘Jim’, and because of that Huck was loyal and he chose to do the truly right thing, instead of what society perceived as right.

After finishing the assignment, I started asking more questions. I talked other students to see if they had any of the same thoughts, but I was very surprised when no one was as concerned. I began pushing myself away from my community and their opinions. Over the next year, I became heavier and heavier with the thought of not having anyone that had even remotely the same views, so I acted out. I dropped out of high school, and moved to the next biggest town, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, an hour away to work in a crappy job that was going nowhere; thinking that people from all over the country would be there, and I would surely find at least one group that felt the same so we could figure out how to fix this together. Astonishingly, I found something entirely different. I was still learning about myself and realized that I am not that a very extroverted person at all. In high school, it was so easy because I had known everyone since kindergarten, but this was an entirely new world, and I was not able to get myself out there to find where I fit in.

Just a few short years later, I have moved halfway across the country in search of finding the opportunity to really ignite change.
I know that I am not able to change the world overnight, but I can try to change it one person at a time. Currently our president incites hate on national level, and even worse, he is not the first. Now more than ever, we need to get people talking to each other openly, and without blame; like Mark Twain with Huck and Jim. Once united as a country of Americans, not whites, blacks, Mexicans, or Asians living on the same soil, we can all help create a better country. As Huck says, “People will call me a low down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t agoing to tell, and I ain’t agoing back there anyways.” I am incredibly thankful for one assignment that feels like an age ago, and I am also thankful to the teacher who challenged me to find the deeper meaning of books and ultimately opened my eyes to the larger issue of racism in the
world.