KidLit Forum

The man behind the child

When I say "man" I say strength of mind, backbone, fortitude, guts, and a lot of character. While Tom Sawyer dreams about adventure and dangerous plots, Huck really lives them at his full potential. Firstly, he doesn't have a paternal figure as a model, he is more and more abused by his natural father, and yet he accepts all the "sivilizing" treatment even though he feels like a lion in a canary cage. Secondly, he experiences kidnapping and full isolation far away from everybody. In his dispair, he imagines a great plan of escaping this situation leaving no tracks behind. Then he kills a wild animal with a gun, he stains all the floor with blood so the others will think he's dead and will quit following him. Then he hides like a snake and flees the place leaving them no clue. In his condition, he still thinks about Tom Sawyer and how happy he would have been to participate. It's funny how Huck remains normal, he doesn't lose his head or reason. He really is his own true master.

After finding Jim and helping him to escape (also Huck helps himself too in this battle for freedom), Huck deals with another type of battle: between good and bad. He has the power to lie for Jim even though this might get both into trouble. He has patience even with those bandits and agrees to be their "valet" in order not to turned them against Jim and him. Huck is most of the time the real MAN of the book. In the end Tom is the one who gets a bullet in his leg for being so... irational and irresponsable. He failed his own plan, while Huck always stuck to his full potential and reason. One thing si to dream about adventure, and another thing is to live the real adventure.

Ironically, Huck often knows better than the adults around him, even though he has lacked the guidance that a proper family and community should have offered him. Has the author made Huck so powerfull for a reason? Or is it really easy for a "wild" child like Huck to blend in and to adapt?

All I can say is that the adults in this book aren't the ones from whom Huck has something to learn, it's viceversa.

I really liked Huck's views upon religion, his opinion about miss Watson's opinion.

"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. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good. Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together." (ch.1)

Huck considers heaven to be really boring for the fact that the "people" there do nothing but walk and sing. When he asks her if his friends will go there she gets irritated. Huck has strange friends who do no good, especially Jim (neither niggers, nor their friends will ever go to heaven:!:) but he doesn't understand why she wants to go in such a boring place. He has to do his homework, be clean, do good in life and go to church and voila, he can go to heaven. But he doesn't like any of these because they weren't explained properly. He sticks to the truth in him and his loyalty to his own friends. There's a moral code you got to be true to. And this means a lot more than the senseless, meaningless, pointless ideas of miss Watson.