Freedom In Huck Finn

Is it logical to compare America’s greatest novel to used tissues and banana peels? No, not even a little bit. Some see the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as trash, however, others think the novel is the best of all time. This longtime argument has a simple solution. The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not trash because of Huck’s growing maturity and the promotion of equality, even though Twain uses stereotypical characters. In the beginning of the novel, Huck Finn showed immaturity, gullibility, and did whatever his best friend, Tom Sawyer, told him to do without thinking about what he was doing, or why. During Huck’s journey with the escaped slave Jim, he matures into an adult figure with a well-rounded perspective.
Mark Twain uses stereotypes throughout the novel, particularly with slaves. While on the Phelps property, Huck, Jim, and Tom tricked a slave, Nat, into believing that witches haunt him. Nat believes the three of them when they tell him he has seen many strange events go on and Nat thinks he has never been “witched so long” (Twain 178) in his life. Using Nat as a stereotypical slave, Twain portrays him as gullible and not smart. However, Twain uses Jim to show slaves differ from what people thought. When Tom suffered with his leg wound, Jim was “r(i)sking his freedom” (Twain 215) to help Tom. Twain uses Jim to show that slaves, or any African Americans for that matter, are the same as Caucasian Americans. Portraying Jim as an equal person changes the view on African Americans, proving the novel is not trash. It makes no sense for one to compare The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to used tissues and banana peels. The novel is not trash because of Huck’s growth to maturity, as Huck makes smarter decisions for both himself and Jim, and the promotion of equality, as Twain uses Huck and Jim’s friendship to prove a lack of difference between races, even though there are stereotypical characters, like showing the slave Nat as gullible and not