Preview

Friendship In Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
601 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Friendship In Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn tells the story of a thirteen year old boy named Huck Finn and his adventures with Jim, a black slave. Throughout the novel, Huck and Jim become more dependent on each other. The growing dependence with each other is evident of their friendship amidst their dramatic adventures together. The events in the novel reveal that Huck treats friendship as a very serious matter in his life. Twain maintains this significance of this theme throughout the novel, as to highlight the amount of value that Huck puts in friendship and loyalty amongst his friends.
Towards the beginning of the novel, the reader is revealed that Jim and Huck are stranded on an island. From this, the reader is able to understand that dependence on each other is beginning to form. Huck is useless with a gun as he would only be able to kill an animal but not be able to cook. Jim is
…show more content…
First and foremost, Jim’s passion towards Huck’s safety, reveals the dependence on Huck. As Jim claims Huck’s return is ‘too good for true’ and ‘back agin’, Twain’s motive was to show the one sided passion to Jim and Huck’s friendship at this point in the novel. Moreover, at this point in the novel, Huck is still conflicted on helping Jim, but Jim has done nothing but thank Huck. The contrast of Jim’s passion and Huck foolishness towards Jim allows for Twain to reveal the developing friendship of them too. Jim sees Huck as his only friend and because of this, Jim is more worried about Huck’s safety than his own. Jim was equally lost and in danger, especially as a runaway slave. However, Jim did not lash out at Huck for leaving him, but instead praised his return. In fact, Jim completely disregards any worries about himself. Therefore, it is clear that Jim values Huck’s life after his own. The value that Jim sets, reveals the friendship that Twain is hoping to set in the rest of the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Huckleberry Finn is a novel set in the rural south of the United States during a period in history when slavery and racism were part of everyday life. The novel introduces two main characters: Huck Finn, an adventurous but naïve, white boy, and Jim, a runaway slave whom is travelling with Huck down the Mississippi River. Throughout the course of the novel, both characters are faced with their individual internal struggles; Huck in particular is faced with the pressing notion of whether or not he should turn Jim in to his rightful owner and do the “right” thing, or disobey the law and help Jim obtain his freedom. Being nothing more than a foolish and naïve boy, Huck does not know the meaning of true love and friendship, until Jim opens up to him and they begin to bond no longer as white boy and black slave, but as humans.…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Racism In Huck Finn

    • 253 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In chapter 8 on page 41, Huck and Jim seem to grow a bond, a bond that society wouldn’t accept, when Huck later finds out that Jim ran away and were wondering in the woods they seem to develop a close friendship. Huck could have told someone that Jim ran away but instead Huck accepted Jim and took part in an adventure along with Jim.…

    • 253 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Censorship in Huck Finn

    • 1676 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a young boy named Huckleberry Finn runs away from his life and travels down the Mississippi River with his friend Jim, a runaway slave. The story follows Huck 's moral growth and maturity throughout his many adventures and experiences. The major turning point of the book is when Huck realizes that Jim cares about him, and that he cares about Jim in return. As a child, Huck is taught that Jim isn 't a person because of his skin color and that he does not deserve respect, but Huck discovers that Jim is a person and deserves more respect than most people Huckleberry met on his journeys. He comes to this decision because Jim cares for him and treats Huck better than his own father. Huck says “All right, then, I 'll go to hell.” when he decides to go against the racist teachings of his childhood and help Jim get his freedom (Twain 216-217). The book was written to show what life was like in the 1840s and successfully revealed the way people viewed each other and people of other races. In the beginning of the story, Huck treats Jim poorly because he is taught that…

    • 1676 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The novel is written in a way to not only document the evils of slavery and the existence of racism in the South, Twain also shows that the use of what we consider to be inappropriate language today is a true representation of language considered to be appropriate during the period of slavery. Lastly, the book is a symbol of humanity as a deep, unlikely relationship forms between a white boy and a slave. Huck protects Jim and helps him to escape, while Jim will risk his own freedom for Huck. In the end, freeing Jim from slavery helps Huck to free himself from the hatred of slavery in the…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Most of the development of their relationship to each other comes in the beginning of the book. During the second half of the book, the character of Jim takes somewhat of a back seat to the rest of the story. Jim is either left behind on the raft, or confined to a cell for most of the chapters after Chapter 19. Despite his infrequent appearances, it is in the last half of the book that the bond of trust is solidified in Huck’s heart. When Huck decides that he will free Jim and declares, "All right, then, I’ll go to hell," (pg. 206) he bases that decision on events that have brought the two closer during the trip, such as the foggy night and the time Huck saved Jim by saying he had smallpox. These are probably two of the key events in the story as it relates to the relationship between Huck and Jim. It is the first event, the foggy night, which brings about a major change in Huck. He risks his life trying to navigate the river in the fog in order to be reunited with Jim. When the raft first drifts off, Huck could have stayed on the shore and been safe, but he does not even think of not following Jim because he knows Jim would be caught if Huck was not with him because they were in the south and slavery was still going on and people would take Jim and put him back into slavery and undo what Huck was trying to do. When he…

    • 4981 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an important novel that shows how the two worlds of Huck and Jim collide to bring out the problems of racism and slavery before the civil war. Huck was a young, naive boy who is oblivious to the outside world. Jim was a slave with a big heart who looked at the world in a whole different perspective. Throughout the journey together Huck and Jim’s relationship was shaken by the cold reality of racism and slavery, thus slowly opening Huck's eyes to the world around him and creating a new foundation for friendship. When Jim and Huck go on their journey outside of St.Petersburg, Missouri a whole new world was opened up to them, they saw the country like never before.…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “ The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it,” (Twain 8). What is morally right and wrong is a fine line between the cultures, religions, and beliefs of different lifestyles. Without guidance and direction its even harder to decipher what is morally right and wrong, but through the experiences of life one can develop the skills needed to mature and shape them; when a boy becomes a man. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written before The Civil War, by Mark Twain (AKA)…

    • 1193 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huckleberry Finn's Journey

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the most loved novels in American literature. Due to its popularity, there are a lot critiques and analyses of the work, especially of Huck and his development. But in all the analyses of Huck, people have neglected to appreciate one of the most important protagonists in American literature, Jim. Without Jim's guidance for Huck, Huck's journey would have failed. In Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim plays the role of a father to Huck by providing for his physical, emotional, and moral well-being.…

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck sees Jim as a father figure. Jim is like the carig father Huck never had. The way Jim always looked after Huck was like a parent or guardian. Huck knows Jim would do anything for him, and he has not had that support in his life. Huck’s feeling for Jim as a parent was expressed in Document E: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”. In the document is says, “ I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping… and do everything he could think for me…” Huck now has someone in his life that would do anything to let Huck benefit. Jim was looking out for huck and Huck noticed. Jim gave Huck the care he never got from his dad. Huck could not help but see him as a father figure.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck Finn Racist

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages

    While all this is happening, while Huck is playing these tricks on Jim, we have to remember Huck is still a kid. He’s only around 13 years old, and that’s what kids do. They don’t think before they do things, and they like to play pranks and tricks on people. Huck was just trying to have fun with Jim, not be mean to him and be racist to him. In the novel Huck and Jim have a good relationship, they become friends and Huck starts seeing him as a person rather than a slave. They form a bond, a friendship.…

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck Finn Essay

    • 1613 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Twain presents man versus self conflicts in the novel. Huck constantly faces internal conflicts, especially when it comes to Jim. While looking for Cairo, Twain illustrates Huck’s dilemma. As they float down the river, Jim expresses his excitement and says “he would go to saving up money...he would buy his wife…and then they would both work to buy the two children” (75). The way Jim talks horrifies Huck; Being raised in a society that taught people that slaves were property, Huck realizes just what he has done by helping Jim to freedom. Twain uses this scene to emphasize how much Jim’s race affects Huck. Although Twain lays out the story as an adventure, there are much deeper concepts brewing beneath – especially the clash between Jim and Huck. Twain captures this when Huck thinks, “I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him” (75). In the next part of the scene, Huck takes their canoe to shore and faces the decision of whether to turn Jim in or not when he runs into two white men inquiring about his raft. Just minutes before it would have been an easy decision for Huck, but when he comes across the men he begins second-guessing himself. Twain embodies Huck’s internal conflict in this scene. The reader’s see Huck’s thoughts when he says:…

    • 1613 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Due to the loss of his mother and having to run from an abusive father, Huck longed for kindness and support. Jim was the only character in this novel to do just that. For instance, when Huck and Jim come upon a floating cabin, Jim tells Huck not to look at the dead man inside the house. Jim protectively tells Huck, "Come in, Huck, but doan' look at his face—it’s too gashly" (50). The dead man turned out to be Huck’s father. Jim, however, did not want Huck to see his dead father. This is just one example of how Jim was like a father to Huck, or in fact, an even better father than Huck’s birth father.…

    • 367 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck Finn

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Huck was raised in a society where slaves were not treated like actual human beings, and throughout the story, Huck starts to see that Jim actually has…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Friendship is one of the most coveted things in life. A good friend always going to be there when they need to be. In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, a runaway slave named Jim and a teenage boy named Huck face a multitude of challenges that will cause them to work together to survive. This leads to a very unlikely and dangerous relationship that they develop together. Over the course of the novel Huck and Jim’s relationship will grow from mutual need to a brotherhood.…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck became someone that Jim could talk to, someone he could consider family. We see Jim tell Huck of how excited he is because of Huck’s bravery. “Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n' for joy, en I'll say, it's all on accounts o' Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it hadn' ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck; you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had; en you's de ONLY fren' ole Jim's got now. (16.14)” We can see Jim cares deeply about Huck because he relies heavily on Huck to get him out of the horrors he had to deal with each day in his life of slavery.…

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays