Smooth Sailing (Huck Finn)

A home is normally portrayed as a dwelling in which a person feels safe and is able to be themselves. In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, Huck, the protagonist, thinks of the river as his home. All his life the shore has had negative connotations, but after he moves to the river, everything changes for the better. While on land, he is brutalized by his father, forced into conformity by Miss Watson, and a witness to a murder. While on the river, he finds his family and learns to relax.

There are many examples of family in the novel, some functional, others figurative. When Huck is on the land, he encounters many different types of families; including his relationship with his father, Pap. Pap has many views about how Huck should be raised, including his belief that Huck should not be taught to read; “You’re educated, too, they say; can read and write. You think you’re better’n your father, now, don’t you, because he can’t?... I’ll lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school, I’ll tan you good” (18). Pap’s reaction to Huck’s education is appalling. As a father, he should only have Huck’s best interest at mind, not concentrating on keeping his child illiterate. Unfortunately, this is not the only example of familial dysfunction we see in the novel. When Huck loses Jim in the water, he washes up and is found by the Grangerfords. This animalistic family is feuding with a neighboring clan, the Shepherdsons, when neither side knows the actual root of the argument. These two families are heartless, and even though they seem civilized enough with their formalities and nice houses, they are savages. Death is a common occurrence, towards which an eyelash never batted. Huck meets his counterpart, Buck, and soon sees how deranged this family really is with the death of Mr. Grangerford. “[Buck] said his father and his two brothers was killed..Buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their relations-- the Shepherdsons were too strong for them” (97). Even though Huck feels like he fits in with the Grangerfords, he is horrified at the way they view the deaths of their kinsmen. When Buck dies, Huck becomes very upset, solely because one of the few people who he has cared about is dead. Although Huck feels an attachment to the Grangerfords, they do not function as a family and do not treat him accordingly. The only real family that Huck encounters throughout the whole novel is Jim, with whom he travels down the Mississippi River. Jim cares for Huck for the duration of their adventures together, no matter what Huck put him through. Jim trusts Huck blindly, and goes out of his way to ensure Huck’s happiness and safety. Jim even lets Huck sleep through his watch because he doesn’t disturb his sleep. Jim and Huck get separated after they lose the raft from the riverboat, but when they are finally reunited, Huck is just as happy to see Jim as Jim is to see Huck. “It was Jim's voiceвЂ"nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was so glad to see me. He says:

Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's dead agin. Jack's been heah; he say he reck'n you's ben shot, kase you didn' come home no mo'; so I's jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de mouf er de crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en leave soon as Jack comes agin en tells me for certain you IS dead. Lawsy, I's mighty glad to git you back again, honey’ (98).

Even though there is a racial barrier between them, they’re their own family. They live together on the raft, and care about each other deeply, as shown here. Although it took him a considerable amount of looking, Huck found a family, who was on the river with him the whole time.

The river is most often seen as an escape in the novel. Both Huck and Jim run to the river in order to get away from the lives that they don’t want to live. Huck is restless with his life, and he is constantly going to great lengths to enrich it. Tom and Huck start a band of thieves and murderers, and make a blood pact to keep this group alive, but Huck soon finds out that it is all a lie, just a figment of Tom’s imagination. “We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn’t robbed nobody, we hadn’t killed any people, but only pretended... But I couldn’t see any profit in it” (12). The real adventure that he craves can only be found after he has started down the river. When he and Jim are on the way to Cairo, they happen upon a riverboat that has crashed. Huck boards the boat in search of adventure, and even wishes Tom was with him to join in the fun. “Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing? Not for pie, he wouldn’t. He’d call it an adventure-- that's what he’d call it; and land on that wreck if it was his last act” (57). Huck ventures onto the boat only to find a gang of real thieves, and ends up reporting them to the captain. Huck’s thirst for adventure is only satiated by what he finds on the river, and these are invaluable to his development as a character. Huck is not only cramped by lack of adventure, but is also unable to act the way he wants while living with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson.

Miss Watson would say, вЂ?Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;’ and вЂ?Don't scrunch up like that, HuckleberryвЂ"set up straight;’ and pretty soon she would say, вЂ?Don't gap and stretch like that, HuckleberryвЂ"why don't you try to ?’ Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular (4).

When Huck is on the river, he doesn’t have to conform to anyone else’s view of manners,