While reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I found myself comparing it to other coming of age stories that I have read in the past. This has lead to some interesting interesting inferences about Huck’s journey, both ethical and physical, throughout the story. Before I read Huckleberry Finn, I had thought that many Northern ‘free’ states were aware that slavery was wrong, but the laws and tradition that surrounded it made it hard to stop. Now, though, when I read about Huck’s struggle with the fact that he had been taught that it was morally right to own (and turn in) slaves, as well as most people in the story immediately stereotyping Jim as being at the root of any problem that he is even mildly involved in, my perception of the pre-Civil War North, has changed.
Mark Twain uses the inherent helplessness of the characters present in the storyline for everything from comedy to drama. This is framed perfectly with his two main characters, Huck and Jim. When Huck runs away from his abusive father, he expects help from no one, because he fears that they would be unable to protect him from his father, due to the fact they could not protect him in the past. When Jim runs away from his owner, he fears he is about to be sold to a man he knows nothing about, and separated from his family. At the end of the book, Mark Twain wraps up both of these issues by setting Jim free and killing off Huck’s dad, ending the current conflict. However, I received a new perspective on these events when reading Henry Smith’s critique. In his critique, he points out the lack of realism in this kind of ending. What I realized, though, was that neither Huck nor Jim have managed to achieve anything in the book that helped solve their own problems- all of their problems were solved by other people. In many ways, this observation perfectly captures the inherent problems with the book- though Huck managed to develop a better moral compass, he is still unable to change his place in life.
No comments:
Post a Comment