Huckleberry Finn

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain, there are many symbols that show much importance throughout the story. The Mississippi River, which acts as an escape path for Huck and Jim, is considered to be one of the most important symbols in the novel. Throughout the story, the Mississippi River plays an important symbolic figure, and significance to the story's plot. For Huck and Jim, the river is a place for freedom and adventure. Mark Twain uses the Mississippi River to symbolize freedom, adventure, and comfort. The usage of this symbol has an enormous significance to the story's plot and structure. The style and structure that Twain carries throughout the story is what makes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a masterpiece and sets it apart from Twain's other works. Twain's style is simple and conveys his ideas in a boyish mood. The book is somewhat of an irony in itself because of this style. He gives his complex observations on society through the eyes and through the speech of a young boy out for adventure (Miller 193).

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is divided into three sections. An organizational object in the book is the river, which serves as a timeline for the story (Marx 130). The book starts with the explanation of Huck introducing himself as a character from Tom Sawyer and the son of a town drunk. The opening deals with the most complex and serious issue, the notion of slavery and the appropriate response to it, in a society in which assisting a slave to escape is against the law. It is evident that Huck faces a real moral dilemma in sorting out his conflicting loyalties to the law and to his friendship with Jim, something much more serious than Tom's childish adolescent adventures. And we follow Huck making a clear decision to assist Jim and to follow through the consequences by aiding his escape to a place where he can be free.

When the novel starts, Huck lives with Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson. However, Huck does not like the civilized life and would rather live an easy going life. Huck's father finds out that Huck has some money and kidnaps him into a shack by the river. Huck fakes his death and flees to Jackson Island. On the island, he meets Jim, Miss Watson's runaway slave. When they find that there are men on the island searching for Jim, they decide to travel down the Mississippi river and up the Ohio River into the free states. On the river, they live an easy life as they travel during the night and hide during the day.

The second section of the novel begins once Jim and Huck pass Cairo. Traveling down the river, they have many adventures, but they miss the turnoff into the Ohio River and in turn miss the chance to travel north to freedom. From this point on they are, in fact, moving further and further away from the goal of the original escape and heading towards the place which for Jim is the worst possible place on earth, New Orleans, the heart of the slave trade. (Miller 192).

The final section begins with the capture of Jim, and Huck's decision to help him, even if it means he will go to hell. It is at this point where it seems that the beginning of the novel is returning. Only now the issue is much more complex, because Jim is captured and they are in the Deep South, not easily accessible to an escape route up the Ohio River. But this tone is quickly abandoned with the idea that Huck is mistaken for Tom Sawyer, and for many readers the novel becomes something very different once the real Tom Sawyer reappears.

Although the book divides itself into three sections, it does not divide itself into neatly rising action, climax and conclusion since the book consists of several adventures with its own rising action, climax, and conclusion. It is difficult to label a single point as the climax.

In Huckleberry Finn, the river provides a place for Huck and Jim to escape the harsh society around them and develops into a god. The river provides a pathway for the action to progress; unlike other forms of travel it proceeds to guide the book in one direction down a set path. The river controls the adventures, "It is the River ... that will not let them to land at Cairo, where Jim could have reached freedom; it is the River that separates them ...the River that reunites them, ..." (Johnson). It is through the adventure of Huck and Jim that Twain tries to show the power that can only be displayed by the natural force of the river.

Huck and Jim's