Huck Finn

Huck Finn

Mark Twain's very popular novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, relates the adventures of a teenage boy who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave named Jim. As they sail down the river Huckleberry Finn

and Jim finds danger, adventure, and many people who are sometimes menacing and often very funny.

I think this is a funny and entertaining book, mostly because Huckleberry Finn's view of the world and his way of talking bring out the humor in situations. For example, while talking about when he was with the Widow Douglas after she adopted him, Huck says that, "After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people" (Twain 4). This scene early in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn sets the tone for the rest of the book. The reader likes Huck right away because he is so honest about his feelings and has a funny way of looking at things. The book is funny, but it also has many lessons about human nature and life in it as Mark Twain tells how Huck longs to escape the strict restrictions of society and pursue a life free of worry as he lives off the land and sails down the beautiful Mississippi River.

It was interesting to be taken back into the world of the 1840's to see how life was then and see the problems that people had to deal with. It seemed to me that the more Huck attempted to escape the society that tied him down, the more he encountered it and the more it attained a hold upon him. One of the main lessons of Mark Twain's book, and a reason why it is still very popular today more than one-hundred years after it was written is that people never really change. Just like there are con men today who try to cheat people out of money, The King and the Duke in Huckleberry Finn schemed to cheat people in 1840 as they scammed and deceived their way to getting rich.

For example, when the young man Jim and Huck met introduced himself as, "the rightful Duke of Bridgewater," and lamented that he was, "forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold world, ragged, worn, and heartbroken," he was conning them, and they fell for it" (Twain 119). Mark Twain reveals often throughout the book how gullible people are. They don't see the capability of everyone, especially the young. One example of this is when Huck portrays himself as dead after using an ax and a pig to put the cabin in ruins with blood and his hair.

Another instance is when Huck dresses up as a girl and goes into a cabin to get some things for Jim and him. He calls himself Sarah Williams, and even when he slips and calls himself Mary, the lady still has no clue. Finally, she figures it out, but it takes her a while. Another example of the gullibility of people was when the Duke decided to put on a phony Shakespearean play, and orated to the audience, "To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin, That makes calamity of so long life...." (Twain 132). The unsophisticated people in the crowd were impressed and had no idea that they weren't really hearing Shakespeare at all, but only a version put together by the Duke and the King to make some money for themselves. This is another part of the book that I found funny and entertaining as it shows the people of that time were unsophisticated. I also thought it was very significant that those two schemers the King and the Duke viewed money and material possessions as a necessity for their own self-fulfillment, while Huck and Jim were happy to enjoy the luxury of money but were more than able to do without it and fend for themselves.

While the book has all of these things, on another level it is simple entertainment, and a story filled with adventure. One of my favorite scenes was when Hines had Huck and then, "All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white glare . . . and Hines let out a whoop,