r,

UNIT 13 THEMES AND CHARACTERIZATIOI~,~IN

l 2 U C K L E B E . Y FINN ---- "-------
Structure Write an essay on Mark Twain's art of characterization in 'Huckleberry Finn'
Discuss the twin themes of Freedom and Slavery in Huckleberry Finn.
13.0 Objectives
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Theme(s)
13.3 Twain's Art of Characterization
13.3.1 The characterization of Huck
13.3.1.1 Huckin Tom Sawyer
13.3.1.2 Sources in Mark Twain's Life
13.3.1.3 Huck
13.3.1.4 Huck's Moral Development
13.3.2 The Characterization of Jim
13.3.2.1 Source in Mark Twain's Life
13.3.2.2 Jim
13.4 The Ending of Huckleberry Finn
13.5 LetUsSumUp
13.6 Glossary
13.7 Assignment
13.8 Further Reading

13.0 OBJECTIVES

As well as providing you with some preliminary information about Huckleberv

Finn, the Unit offers a perspective on the themes and the characters in it. Ap& From
the principal theme of freedom and slavery, it discusses other themes and motifs d
then goes on to focus on Huck atfd his moral developmat. The chasactenzation of
Jim will consider the ways in which Mark Twain departs h m the stereotype of a
negro appearing in fiction and on stage.

--
13.1 INTRODUCTION

Any literary work must be seen both in relation to the life experiences and values of
its author and to the socio-cultural context of the time and place in which it remains
firmly rooted. This is particularly important in the case of Huckleberry Finn which
deals with the sensitive issue of slavery.

By the time he came to write Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain had left Hannibal and
had settled in Elmira and had outgrown his slave-holding heritage. His fiiend W.D.
Howells called him "the most desouthemized Southerner." However, his presentation
of slavery, particularly the way in which Jim is freed in the novel has been faulted.

The background infomation provided earlier about the author and the age should
help you to read the text again and make your own judgement about the book's
treatment of slavery and some other issues raised in the book.

-- -
13.2 THEME($)

Huckleberry Finn has been a happy hunting ground for critics wanting tc~classifjl its
genre and identify its theme or th-~ m e s .
'^~uckleberr~
Finn
Is it a boy's book, a book of travel and adventures? It has long been read as a classic
for boys. Or is it a comic book or a book that contains adult social criticism and
satire? Or is it a boy's book in the sense of being a book about growing up?

A related and a more important question is: What is the book about? Or, since every
important novel is about a number of things the key question is:- What is
Hucklebeny Finn particularly about?

Before you read further, I want you to note down what you consider to be the
important themeslmotifs in the novel. You could write the theme(s)/motifs singly or
in pairs of opposite ideas. My own list would read something like this:
Superstition
growing up money
death and rebirth
romantic imagination versus reality
civilization versus freedom
individual versus society
river versus town

Which of these, according to you, is the principal theme?

Very obviously, the theme of freedom and slavery is the central preoccupation of the
book--it is the spine of the novel that gives it strength, though there are other thematic
strands intertwined with it.

Freedom in the novel is multidimensional. It of course means physical freedom for

both Huck and Jim, Huck fiom the suffocating 'sivilizing' atmosphere at Widow
Douglas and from his brutal drunken father, and Jim from chattel slavery. But, it also
means freedom from inherited prejudices--which is what Huck achieves in relation to
Jim at the end.

For Huck hedom also means freedom from the constraints of civilized society.
Already an outcast Huck doesn't have the kind of attachments that Jim has or that
Tom has. He wants to be able to plough a lonely h o w by lighting out for the
territory. In other words freedom for Huck is centrifugal--running away from "the
security of home to the wilderness of the outside world."

But for Jim freedom means freedom to be reunited with his wife and children. His
concept of freedom is centripetal. In more practical terms, Jim is 'free' towards the
end having been freed by his owner Miss Watson in her will. But Tom's elaborate
plan to ' h e ' him in style ironically prolongs his slavery and the episode can be read
as Twain's recognition of the dubious reality of the meaning of freedom for Negroes
even afkr the abolition of slavery in 1863. Twain seems to be asking - Can Jim ever
be free? Also, can Huck really escape civilization? Since fieedom for Huck and Jim .
means different things, Twain seems to be interrogating the idea of fieedornlslavery
in the novel and he leaves the question open-ended.

This section is necessarily brief because the points suggested above will be dealt with
later on also when the characterizstion of Huck and Jim is considered. But one can
see how the other themes and motifs are intertwined with the ~hieftheme. For
instance the idea of individual liberty and social conformity is closely connected with
the larger theme of freedom and slavery. This theme is realized through the character
of Huck who values his liberty above the demands of society. A non-conformist, his
individualism needs to be distinguished from what Shulman has described as the
romantic individualism of Tom, the anarchic individualism of his father Pap Finn and
the acquisitive individualism of the king and the duke. And it coexists with a very
sensitive social conscience. M~ieover,Huck spends some of the best moments of his
life in perfect communion with Jim on the raft. In this respect Twain is probably
1 suggesting the possibility of individualism which is inseparable from rather than Themes and
opposed to community. Characterization

Discussing Stars

Huck however remains essentially a loner and when he finds the freedom to be and-to
do as he likes threatened by Aunt Sally's decision to adopt and 'sivilize' him, he
makes up his mind to light out for the territory in search of non-civilized freedom.

Here Twain can be seen spelling out another sub-theme--that of civilization versus
nature. What does civilization mean in the novel? It means conformism,
respectability and bookish piety and it coexists with acceptance of slavery. Witness
the aristocracy or the planter class represented in the novel by the Grangerford whose
pretence of civilized values depends parasitically upon the labour of hundreds of
niggers. Nature on the other hand stands for untutored innocence, absence of
hypocrisy and instinctive sympathy towards those in trouble. In the opposition
between the two the novel satirizes civilization and leans heavily towards nature. But
the dichotomy is not absolute. For civilization is not always devalorized in the novel
as is clear from the episode involving Pap Finn. Pap Finn lives in the midst of nature
and denounces education and stands up for slavery.

Ahother sub-theme that is tangentially linked to the idea of freedom and slavery is the
opposition between imagination and reality. This sub-theme emerges through the
novel's structure which is framed, as it were, by romantic episodes at each end in
I sharp contrast to the reality of the middle section. In Chapter 3 Huck rejects Tom's
1 bookish romanticism and his imaginings as lies. "I got an old tin lamp and an iron
ring and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an Injun,
calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it wasn't no use none of the genies'come.
I
So then I judged that all that stuff was only one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he
believed in the Arabs and the elephants, but-.as-- for me I think different" (3:26, italics
added).
 ..
Huckleberry Finn Likewise Huck sees little sense in Tom's over-elaborate romantic plan to free Jim,
though he falls in line with it eventually. When Huck calls Tom's plan of digging the
foundation of Jim's cabin foolish, Tom persists with his romantic plan invoking the
authority of the printed word: "It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the
right way--and it's the regular way. And there ain't no other way, that I ever heard of
and I've read all the books that gives any information about these things, They
always dig out with a case knife . . .And it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks,
and for ever and ever" (35:274-75).

Tom's romantic plan stands condemned not only because it wilfully imagines
difficulties where there are none but also because of his utter indifference to the
torture and humiliation Jim has to undergo.

Huckleberry Finn is a thematically rich text and this discussion does not exhaust all
the possibilities.

I suggest that you work out some of the sub-themes suggested above in greater details
on your own.

13.3 TWAIN'S ART OF CHARACTERIZATION

Since Huck is both a first person narrator and the central consciousness in the novel,:
we not only get to know every other character in the novel as they filter through his
consciousness but also himself very intimately.

A preliminary question to ask is: How has the novelist presented his central
character(s) in Huckleberry Finn?

At some stage in your skdy this question should turn intd a general enquiry also--
How do novelists present their characters? How, for instarice, does Hawthorne
present his characters? Comparison and contrast always help to bring out the
similarities and differences between the authors sharply and to fix them in the mind.

13.3.1 The Characterization of Huck

Before discussing Huck's character in the novel, it will be heipful to go back to Tom
Sawyer and see how Huck has been presented there and also to examine the sources
of his character in Mark Twain's life.

13.3.1.1 Huck in Tom Sawyer

.. . the juvenile pariah of the village . . . son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry was
cordially hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town because he was idle and
lawless, and vulgar, and bad--and because all their children zdmired him so, and
delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like him . . . the
romantic outcast. (6:

Exercises

1. What I want you to do now is to see in what way Huck in ;Yucklebeny Finn
is similar to this description and how he is different.
'
The extract describes him as 'idle,' 'lawless,' 'vulgar,' .and 'bad.' Fasten on
each of these terms and see if you can use them for Huck in this novel.
 2. Huck is the first person narrator in this novel as he was not in Tom Sawyer. Themes and
What effect does this new strategy have on your reactions to Huck as you Characterization
assess his character?

13.3.1.2 Sources in Mark Twain's Life

According to Dixon Wector, Tom Blankenship with whom Sam had played as a boy
was the prototype for Huck Finn. In Mark Twain's words, "Tom was ignorant,
unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had. His
liberties were totally unrestricted. He was the only really independent person--boy or
man in the community . . . We liked him; we enjoyed his society. And as his society
was forbidden us by our parents, the prohibition trebled and quadrupled its value, and
therefore we sought and got more of his society than of any other boy's."
(Norton:279, Italics added)
1
This unorthodox boy, however, eventually ended up as a respectable "justice of peace
in a remote village of Montana."
Clearly Mark Twain was drawing upon his childhood memories for his Huck.

Much of what we can say about Huck has been anticipated in Unit 2 while dealing
with him as a narrator. Since Huck as the central consciousness is not always aware
of the full significance of his experiences, the writer makes use of irony resulting
from the discrepancy between the narrator's point of view and the author's point of
view to convey his view of character.

Hucklebeny Finn is one of those novels that provide a balance between character and
plot. And Huck is the case of a developing character who changes inwardly, which
according to Scholes and Kellog is the most important element in characterization.

13.3.1.3 Huck

Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry Finn It is easy to romanticize the character of Huck. His age--he is a teenager, his
innocence, and spontaneity that go with it, his being on the fringe of society and the
absence of any pretentions to respectabillity--all this coupled with his proinise to help
Jim escape and their river journey on a raft are good enough material for a romantic
view of Huck. Some of the positive epithets used to describe him are: heroic, a
picaresque saint, an imagist poet. He is also described as a Prometheus, a frontier
Thoreau, a Mississippi Moses, a Tocqevillian hero. It is therefore important for us to
see Huck for what he is.

One could start off by saying that Huck is something of a sceptic. This scepticism
coupled with his naivete help him examine what elders say afresh. For instance, he
does not accept what Miss Watson says about Providence and the efficacy of prayers.
Tom's romantic fiction of Spaniards and rich Arabs also leave him cold. But the
same boy is superstitious almost as much as Jim.

Huck's matter-of-factness goes along with a decided lack of sentimentality or

'sentimentering' as he calls it. In the Wilks episode he is clear sighted enough to see
through the 'slush' and 'hogwash' of the king's eulogy of Peter Wilks. But this does
not prevent him from rating the immature drawing and the poetry of Emmeline as
very good.

His honesty is a most important feature of his character but he makes no fetish of it.
His pragmatism is clear in his repeated lying in order to get out of tight comers and
also to help others to do so. Lying in fact is part of his strategyifor survival in a
world which is hostile and where truth telling is risky. Survival is also what induces
him (and Jim) to borrow things like watermelons from riverside fields though Huck is
aware of the thin line that separate 'borrowing' fiom stealing ('Pap always said it
warn't no harm to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back, sometime,
but the widow said it wasn't anything but a soft name for stealing and no decent body
would do it" (12:82).

Borrowing Watermelon and Corn

 Perhaps the best feature of Huck's character is his sympathy which is at once Themes and
Characterization
spontaneous and unsentimental for those in trouble. When he sees lights burning late
at night, he is put in mind of sick folks. The sight of a supposedly drunken man in
the circus who tries to ride 2 horse delights the audience but makes him feel
miserable. (It warn't funny to me, though. I was all of a tremble to sec his danger"
22: 173.) When he realizes that the men trapped in the wrecked steamboat Wulter
I Scott are doomed to die, he considers "how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be
in such a fix" (13:89). This basic kindness takes a more active form when he cannot
I
playact as a valet to the king any longer in the Wilks episode and discloses the true
identity of the two frauds to Mary Jane. But if he saves her and the rest of the family
from the cheats, he also feels deeply anguished at the tar and feathers punishment
given to them ("I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever
!' feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadfl thing to see.
Human beings can be so kind to one another" (33:260). This is charity at its highest.
The paradox is that for all his dislike of civilization, Huck is a deeply social being
L o s e smse of responsibility makes him the least carefree of boys. This aspect
comes out in his relationship with Jim.

1 I
13.3.1.4 Huck's Moral Development
a
Critics have referred to Huckleberry Finn and rightly--as a novel of education,
recording the moral growth of Huck. He has been called a lifelong learner and
explorer of new temtories.

His moral development takes the form of his emancipation from inherited prejudices
relating to slavery, which is heavily dependent on his realization of Jim's essential
humanity. Several decisions are crucial in this process.

His first decision is made very early in the novel when, a runaway from civilization
himself, he promises not to tell on Jim. ("People would call me a lowdown Ablitionist
and despise me for keeping mum--but that don't make no difference. I ain't agoing to
tell, and I ain't agoing back there anyway" (858). This decision is spontaneous--
these words are spoken casually on the spur of the moment and are not an after-
thought of Huck the narrator and marks the beginning of his community with Jim ("I
was ever so glad to see him. I wasn't lonesome now"). It also constitutes an act of
quiet defiance of the mores of a slave-holding society rep: esented on the one hand by
Miss Watson who would sell her slave and on the other by Pap Finn who though poor
himself resents the superior education of a free negro.

Huck's decision to humble himself before Jim for playing a practical joke on him is a
momentous step in his spiritual progress. It is so because it leads to another
momentous decision of his to save Jim from the slave hunters. The joke consisted in
making Jim believe that their separation during the fog was all a dream and it springs
from a settled belief that negroes were inferior creatures and were 'natural' objects of
fun. At first Jim is taken in by Huck but later when things sink in he replies in a
, speech which is marked at once by righteous indignation and hurt pride that Huck has
tried to humiliate a friend. Huck is truly repentant:

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble

I myself to a nigger--but I done it, and I wasn't ever sorry for it afterwards,
neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if
I'd aknowed it would make him feel that way.
(15: 105)

Huck's decision to fool the slave hunters with a tale of smallpox and save Jim is a
logical conclusion. But this decision is not amved at without a battle between the
promptings of his heart and the voice of his 'deformed conscience.' As Huck and Jim
near Cairo, Jim anticipating his freedom gets to be jumpy and excited. But this fills
Huck with dread for it dawns upon him that he is conniving at the escape of a slave
Huckleberry Finn who is someone else's property ('Conscience says to me, 'what had poor Miss Watson
done to you, that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say
one single word?' 116: 107). His misery increases when Jim talks of securing the
release of his wife and children by stealing if necessary ('Thinks I, this is what comes
of my not thinking. Here was the nigger which I had as good as helped to run away,
coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children--children that
belonged to a man I didn't even know, a man that hadn't done me no harm" (16: 108). ',
But eventually his human instincts prove more powerful than his belief in the sanctity
of property in human flesh and he takes the right decision to save Jim. Huck's
assurance to the slave hunters that he "won't let no runaway niggers get by me if I can
help it" points up his moral dilemma for the fact is that he can't help taking the right
decision.
Huck's process of re-education has well and truly begun. And one of the ghosts of
the racist society that bedevils Huck's companionship with Jim is exorcised. 4
It is natural that there should be greater intimacy even physical intimacy between the
two. Qn return to the river fiom the bloody feud of the Grangerfords and
Shepherdsons Huck feels that "nothing ever sounded so good" like Jim's voice, and 4
"Jim he grabbed me, and hugged me, he was so glad to see me" (18: 137). It is at this t
point that they feel "therewarn't no home like a raft" suggesting an idyllic non-racist
community of two lazing along the river naked on a raft.
The new closeness is evident in three ways--one, his appreciation of the way in which
Jim keeps a vigil in his place, two, his recognition of the common humanity that
I
binds them, and three, Jim's sharing of his daughter Elizabeth's story with Huck.
I went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me when it was my turn. He often done
that. I n e n I waked up, just at day-break, he was sitting there with his head
down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. . .He was
thinking about his wife and children, away up yonder and he was low and
homesick; because he hadn't ever been away Rom home before in his life;
and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for
their'n. It don't seem natural but I reckon it's so. (23: 179)
Huck's moral development is rather spiral than linear for his final struggle with his
conscience covers much the same ground as his preceding combat except that the
problem presents itself to him in religious terms. This struggle is preceded by Huck's
discovery that Jim has been sold by the king for 'forty duty dollars' and his
subsequent crying:
After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels here
was it all come to nothing, everything all busted up, and ruined, because they
could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave
again all his life, and among strangers too, for forty dirty dollars (3 1:240).
Huck's struggle with his conscience is more intense this time because the punishment
for helping Jim escape is dreadhl--he will go to hell (. . ."people that acts as I'd been
acting abbut that nigger goes to everlasting fire" p.241). He writes a letter to Miss
Watson and feels lighter for a moment but when he recalls his relationship with Jim
and their moments of togetherness on the raft, he takes the plunge:
I see Jim before me, all the time, in the day, and in the nibht-time, sometimes
moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing,
and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me
against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of -
his'n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he
was when I come back out of the fog; and . . . would always call me honey,
and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he
always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we
had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend
 old Jim ever had in the world, and the onij one he's got now; and then I Themes and
happened to look around, and see that paper. Characterization
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was trembling,
because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knuwed it.

I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: 'All
right then, I'll go to hell'--and tore it up. (3 1:24 1-42)
Once again Nuck's innate goodness has triumphed over the mores of the slave-
holding society he has internalized.
The ending of the novel has dissatisfied many people for Nuck here is not th'e Nuck
he has developed into. But though in these chapters he concedes the leadership to
Tom, there is no wav~ringon his part on what he has set his mind to--the freeing of
Jim: "%'hen I start in'to steal a nigger, I ain't no ways particular hsw it's done so it's
done. %'ha: want iq my nigger. . . " And he falls in line with Tom, he does so
reluctantly, which means his heart is in the right place.

13.3.2 The Characterization of Jim

I hope reading of hiucklebeny Finn has enabled you to form your own impressions of
Jim. Before you read on, J want you to do this exercise.

Given Below is a list of words some of which could be appl - d for Jim.

(a) Tick off those that you think could be applied to him.
(b) Identify at least one illustrative example for each one you choose.
caring, ignorant, superstitious, kind, loyal, dignified, logical, generous, brave.

13.3.2.1 Source in Mark Twain's Life

In his Sam Clemens of Hannibal, Dixon Wector gives the following information
regarding a prototype for Jim.

Jim-Miss Watson's Slave

Huckleberry Finn But the most memorable servant of the Quarleses [the family of Cleen's
uncle, John Quarles, of Florida, Missourie] was middle-aged Uncle Dan'l,
sensible, honest, patient, the children's comrade in adventure, their adviser
and ally in time of trouble. "It was on the farm that I got my strong liking for
his race," wrote Mark, "and my appreciation of certain of its fine qualities."
Wector goes on to say how Uncle Dan'l became the acknowledged original of
Huck Finn's friend "Nigger Jim," whose unshakable loyalty, generous heart,
and unconscious dignity--even when Huck makes game of his credulity--
raise him to the rank of Mark Twain's noblest creations."

13.3.2.2 Jim

, Like Huck, Jim too has been romanticized and has been presented as a larger-than-
life figure. In one view both Huck and Jim " are related to the demigods of the river,
to the barbarous primitivism of the Negro, and beyond that to the archetypal
primitives of the Golden Age, instinctively good, uncorrupted by reason, living close
to nature and more influenced by its portents than by the conventions of civilization"
(Miller: 100). Another critic turns him into a walking myth--"the great residue of
primitive, fertile force." Jim has even been praised for being superstitious. It is
therefore important to view Jim objectively.

For this a helphl lead has been provided by A.N. Kaul who goes back to the work of
some apologists for slavery in the South, like George Fitzhugh and who describes
what these apologists have called the Sambo personality. In his monograph entitled
History, Sociology and the American Romance, Kaul says:
Sociologists like George Fitzhugh had developed a theory of black
personality popularly shorthanded as "Sambo". They rejected the notion of a
separate species . . .Blacks were human but infantile. They had their good
points, but it was sheer sentimentality to attribute to them mature qualities as,
for instance, sustained purpose or durable relationships. Hence the non-
sanctity of black marriage and the supposed painlessness of family break-up
when husbands or parents were sold one way and wives or children the other.
The black or Sambo was essentially improvident, gullible, irresponsible--a
"grown up child," in Fitzhugh's phrase, totally dependent on parental, that is
to say slave-master's absolute authority. (Kaul:34)
This longish excerpt about the Sambo personality throws considerable light on the
characterization of Jim. In the modem world, Kaul suggests the Sambo personality
would be attributed not to a defect in the genes but to conditioning. The slave-
master's authority over the life of the slave was absolute going beyond the authority
of father over the son. "It included, not just the authority to chastise, but the power to
dispose off the slave in any manner, to dictate (not just regulate) the mode of his life,
his work, his family and sexual power. . . " ( :35). It was the exercise of this absolute
power that made the victim infantile. This insight should enable us to view Jim's
infantile behaviour as being a result of conditioning and social heredity than an
express'ion of his true or natural personality.
To begin with, Jim is presented as Miss Watson's slave, superstitious and gullible,
who is a butt of Tom Sawyer's jokes. Tom hangs Jim's hat on a tree while he [Jim] is
asleep and Jim comes to believe that the witches put him in a trance and rode him all
over the state. The story becomes increasingly dramatic with each telling, with the
result that Jim becomes a sort of 'celebrity' among the negroes. Clearly, in presenting
Jim as something of a comic figure. Mark Twain has used the available stereotype of
a negro. But the writer also shows that given the right opportunity, atmosphere and
challenge, the same Jim emerges with a new dignity and human capacity, leaving the
stereotype mask behind.
Jim's positive qualities begin to show up as he and Huck meet in the Jackson's Island.
This relationship is one of mutval dependence. If Huck promises not to tell on Jim
and later saves him from his captors, Jim acts as a protector of Hdck, almost a Themes and
surrogate father. This role begins on the island itself where his folk wisdom Characterization
regarding young birds saves Huck from the storm that lashes the place. Later he
builds a wigwam on the raft, which amounts to providing a 'home' to Huck. Wigwam - A round tent used in the past
by native Americans as a house or shelter
During the journey he shields Huck from the ghastly sight of Pap Finn's dead body by
showing great delicacy of feeling and discretion. Protective as a father, he often
"didn't call me when it was my turn" (Chapter 23).

The incident that helps most to establish Jim's humanity is when he deeply regrets
beating his 4-yer-old daughter Elizabeth when she did not shut the door without
realizing that she was deaf and dumb.

But Jim's finest moment comes when he reacts to Huck's practical joke after the fog
with great dignity charging Huck with nothing mbre or less than a violation of the
code of friendship. At first Jim is taken in by Huck's mischievous suggestion that
there was no fog and that he had dreamed up the whole incident. But he soon
recovers his humanity. In this scene one can see him moving out of the stereotype
and becoming a human being capable of dignity and emotion and loyalty.

13.4 THE ENDING OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

The last 12 chapters (from Ch.32 to Ch.42) concerning the rescue of Jim from
captivity at the Phelp's farm constitute the ending of the novel. They begin with
Huck's dismay at the selling of his soul mate and his entry into the Phelp's farm in
search of him and end with Jim's final rescue and Huck's subsequent decision to light
out for the territory in search of freedom.

Huck Meets Mr. Phelps

Huckleberry Finn
There has been a great deal of disagreement'about the appropriateness of the ending.
Among those who have justified the ending are Lionel Trilling and T.S. Eliot who
have done so on formal or other grounds. While Trilling concedes that there is a
'falling off in the final episode containing the elaborate game of Jim's escape, he
thinks the novel has a "formal aptnessMwith Huck returning to "his anonymity which
he prefers." Eliot defends the ending because "it is right that the mood of the end of
the book should bring us back to that of the beginning" (Inge: 110).

On the other hand, there is a widespread dissatisfaction (including among the

students) at the way the ending betrays the novel's quest for Jim's fieedom. Leo Marx
faults the ending on three counts: (1) "the flimsy devices of plot," (2) "the discordant
farcical tone," and (3) "the disintegration of the major characters." All of these,
according to Marx betray the failure of the ending." The dissatisfaction arises fiom
the fact that the trick ending involves a sudden change of heart in the slave owner
Miss Watson, which is unexplained and which seems to trivialize the serious issue of
freedom for the slave. This has the effect of turning the enemy into a friend, "the
oppressor [into] "the liberator," as A.N. Kaul puts it. The farcical tone also has the
effect of dissipating the seriousness of the novel's business. And there is a slideback
in the principal character when Huck accepts Tom's leadership and Jim submits
himself to all the humiliation heaped upon him by Tom.

The ending of the novel may not be well rounded but it is I think a true reflection of
the state of the slave after the formal emancipation was announced in 1863. As is
well known, the Emancipation did not mean the disappearance of slavery and the
attitudes that went with it.

The eqancipation was followed by a brief period of reconstruction which in turn was
followed by the compromise of 1877. This last led to a reaction in the form of Jim
Crow laws which denied hasic civil rights to the blacks. It was only in 1954 when
Justice Warren rejected segregation in schools that a near-apartheid situation eased a
little for them. If the ending of the novel is read against the background of what
happened to the blacks in America, it will not appear to be as arbitrary and wilhl as it
may otherwise do.

Mark Twain published the novel over 20 years after the Emancipation of 1863 but he
had the prescience of a great writer to read the signs of the times and to look into the
future. The novel could be read as Mark Twain's satiric comment on those who
wielded power and who wilfully delayed delivering to them what they had agreed to
give them.

As for Huck, though he concedes the leadership to Tom (Don't the best lack all
conviction?) he is wise to reason why Tom had agreed to help Huck free Jim-- \

And his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson setting
Jim free in her will; and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and took alJ.
that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free! and I couldn't ever
understand, before, until that minute and that talk, how he could help set a
nigger free, with his bringing up
(42325)

This comment constitutes a very severe indictment of all the drama Tom has staged
in 'freeing' Jim. For Tom it was all self-indulgence and fun.

So far as Jim is concerned, he tends to get back into his Sambo image but in his
loyalty to the injured Tom he outshines every other character in the novel and in spite
of his docility and patience he manages to retain an individuality of his own.
 Themes and
Ctraracterization

Aunt Polly Appears

13.5 LET US SUM UP

Mark Twain's engagement in Huckleberry Finn is principally with the.twin theme of

freedom-and-slavery, though he interweaves sub-themes like imagination and reality,
civilization and nature, and individual and society with it. During the course of his
exploration he asks what it means to be free and also what it means to be a slave.
The issue is complex for freedom means differnt things for Huck and Jim and both
freedom and slavery are projected in the novel as objectives that are not quite easy to
achieve.
:*
I used the phrase the twin theme of freedom and slavery in the beginning advisedly
because Huck's freedom is heavily dependent on Jim's emancipation and his moral
growth is incomplete without his acceptance, the humanity of the black man without
reservation.

One source of the enduring appeal of the book lies in the Huck-Jim relationship. The
controversial ending of the novel may appear to be a setback to Jim's quest for
freedom but it will make better sense if it is seen against the historical experience of
the blacks in America.

-
13.6 GLOSSARY

chattel slavery: a chattel is a moveable possession, any possession or piece

of property other than real estate. So chattel slavery is a
system wherein the slave belongs to hisfher owner.
Huckleberry Finn
stereotype: a person or thing that conforms to an unjustifiably fixed
usuaily standardized mental picture. (Also a printing plate
cast from a mould of composed type.)

burlesque: mock-serious; comic imitation especially in parody of a

dramatic or literary work.

Reconstruction: Reconstruction Acts passed by the US Congress required the

giving of the vote to Blacks.

Jim Crow Laws: laws passed by the Southern states of the US laying down the
policy of segregating and discriminating against Blacks.
(Originated from the refrain 'jump-Jim-Crow' of a plantation
song.)

13.7 ASSIGNMENT

1. Discuss the twin theme of freedom-and-slavery in Huckleberry Finn.

2. Describe in some detail how Huck wrestled with his conscience on learning
that Jim had been sold to Phelps' plantation and bring out its distinctive
character.

3.
.
In the burlesque closing chapters, Jim--whom the readers "have come to love
and admire--becomes a cartoon figure and the victim of meaningless
tortures." Do you agree? Give a reasoned answer. What reasons can you
suggest Twain may have had for the protracted terminal chapters?

13.8 FURTHER READING

Clemens, Samuel Langhorne. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Ed. Sculley Bradley,

Richard Croom Beatty, E. Hudson Long, and Thomas Cooley. Second Ed. New
York: Norton, 1977.

Inge, M. Thomas. Ed. Huck Finn Among the Critics. Washington: USIS, 1984.

Kar, Prafulla C. Ed. Mark Twain: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. Delhi:

Pencra'ft International, 1992, pp.7- 16.

Kaul, A.N. "Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn (1 884) in "History,Sociology and the
American Romance." New Delhi: Manohar in association with Indian Institute of
Advanced Study, Shirnla, 1990, pages 28-39.

Marx, Leo. "Mr. Eliot, Mr Trilling and Huckleberry Finn'' in "Huck Finn Among
The Critics: A Centenarial Selection" 1884-1984. Ed. M. Thomas Inge, US1 Agency,
1984, pp.113-29.

Miller, Robert Keith. Mark Twain. New York: Frederick Ongar Pub.Co., 1983.
pp.85-111.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Ed. Jane Ogborn. Cambridge:
CUP, 1995.