Huck Finn - Free write & thoughts

Huck Finn

In my free write one thing I focused upon was education. Education is supposed to be looked at as power and a positive experience but here Huck is forced by his father to believe otherwise. Huck’s father wants nothing to do with him besides his money which is the only reason why his father sticks around this time. He criticizes Huck saying that education is nothing and that him and Huck’s mother got along fine without it. He yells at Huck saying that he is no better than anyone else and certainly not better than his father. Huck is alone in the world and has never experienced a true family or positive upbringing, which ties into my lens of alienation. Although Huck started to get an education while living with the widow, Huck still does not feel right. He feels that he is pestered to learn and even though he now has skills that many people dream of having, is he really happy and more “civilized?” Huck at this point of the book is stuck in the cabin with his father and is looking for a way out to freedom. Huck will leave behind education and this new life for the adventure that he dreams of.

The part of the book that I chose to look at is in the middle of chapter 16. Here Huck is confused and stuck at a point of realizing that he in fact helped a slave run away to freedom. Jim sees a piece of land ahead and exclaims, “Dah she is!”, and it is that moment he realizes what he has done. Huck’s emotions and feelings are all over the place at this time. Although Huck and Jim have bonded and became friends, it seems that he forgot all about the color of his skin and what is morally “right” at the time. Huck’s innocence to racism is still not matured and it can be debated if Huck really is racist himself. Personally, I think that Huck looks past it but in this passage it seems that he does have racist thoughts in the back of his mind. Yet, when a boat passes by and asks him about the man with him, he covers for Jim and says it is his father that has small pox instead of Jim. Huck goes out of his way for Jim and puts himself in danger, but this is the only real friend Huck has had in a long time. Huck says at this time, “ I got to feeling so mean and miserable I most wished I was dead.” Huck talks a lot about suicide and now that the idea of helping a run-away-slave has finally entered his mind, a piece of his innocence I feel may be slowly fading away.