The Adventures of Huck Finn: A Coming Of Age Novel The novel ‘The Adventures of Huck Finn’ by Mark Twain is a coming of age novel. Huck’s maturity grows throughout the story. He first starts to show emotions toward a runaway slave, and by the end of the novel, has grown up to the point where, when Jim, the slave, is captured, Huck decides not to play games but to take it serious and rescue him the safest and most logical way. He also decides it give up playing games after his friend is shot to ensure that he would get the medical attention that he needed The first indication of Huck’s growing maturity was in Chapter 15. Huck and Jim are split because of a thick fog near Cairo, …show more content…
(p. 109) Jim’s words had a big affect on Huck, who realizes that Jim is a person, and that his feelings can be hurt. Another example of his growing maturity occurs when Tom meets Huck in the end of the story. Tom immediately takes control of the situation, telling Huck that to rescue Jim the ‘right’ way, they must use the most complicated method possible. This includes elaborate things like digging into the cabin through the floor, having Jim write messages in his own blood and throw them out the window, and filling the cabin with rodents to make the environment more like a prison for Jim. Huck eventually rescued Jim using a simple plan. This shows that Huck is mature enough to understand that a friend’s life is in danger, and they need to really save him, not play around, even though his best friend is against his plan. “But it’s too blame simple; there ain’t nothing to it. What’s the good of the plan that ain’t no more trouble than that?” The final sign of maturity occurs at the end of the novel when Tom and Huck are mistaken for thieves and Tom is shot. If this occurred at the beginning of the novel, Huck would have probably tried to fix it himself, making up a grand story to go along. Now, at the end of the novel, after Huck has matured, he decides to blow their cover and against Tom’s wishes, seek medical help. In
Throughout the book Jim acts as the most caring character, especially towards Huck. Luckily, the two men, devote everything they can to surviving this adventure and it shows that they care for one-another very much.
Twain, an American writer and author of the adventures of Huckleberry Finn, establishes in his book how a boy is “coming of age” through his applying of Huck’s personality towards Jim a slave with whom he has run away with. Huck is cautious through his traveling up the river in order to make sure that neither he or Jim get caught and taken back, but his most concern most of the time is Jim since he is a runaway slave who if caught will be taken back into slavery. In the 31st chapter of this book, Huck feels that he is doing wrong by stealing Jim from Miss Watson, and what consequences he might face if he does not turn back, but he displayed how he doesn't care happened to him. He then decides to proceed with adventure not caring what might happen to him if he keeps going, and this, therefore, displays how Huck has is maturing and is willing to accept the consequences in order to help Jim escape. In this way, Twain indicates how Huck has started “coming of age”.
While at the cabin with Pap, he figures out a way to escape (the cabin acted as a constraint) for the day Pap is gone, without it looking like he has run away. He makes it look as if robbers came into the house and murdered Huck by using pig blood to mimic a human’s blood. This shows the more mature, smart Huck that has not been seen before. IT shows how much potential Huck has, and street smarts (definitely not school/math smarts). Also it shows how he is ready to live by himself, even if that means his family and friends thinking he is dead. The quote “There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods, and laid down for a nap before breakfast,”(Twain 36) shows that he has no cares in the world, and could not be happier to be alone. He is able to do as he wishes whenever he wants, like smoking. Huck is more than capable of taking care of himself which shows more signs of maturity. Huck has to fish for food, hike for materials, and create shelter for survival. It shows how Huck has escaped the harsh society he was used to, and could not be
The friendship between Huck and Jim changes a lot throughout the story. As the protagonists of the story continue on their adventures together, Huck's view of Jim fluctuates several
In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, the main character Huck matures throughout the book due to a sense of growing morality and accepting responsibility for his actions. The character of Huckleberry Finn is introduced to the reader as a lower class, uneducated kid with no manners that is influenced by a greedy society. As the novel progresses Huck into a wonderful, strong character that has dug deep into what it means to be an individual, and by becoming mature, he has also escaped from the negative way society depicts African Americans.
Living in the 1800's wasn't an easy task. There were many hardships that a person had to endure. In the novel, The Adventures of Huck Finn, the author Mark Twain portrays the adventure of a young boy. Huck, the young boy, goes on a journey with various dilemmas. The novel starts off in Missouri on the Mississippi River. Huck is taken from his guardians by his father and then decides to runaway from him. On his journey, he meets up with his former slave, Jim. While Huck and Jim are traveling down the Mississippi River, they meet a variety of people. Throughout the novel he takes on many different tasks which help shape his moral conscience. Taking on a new friend which society
During the book, Huck hasn’t really experienced what life really was and what you might encounter during times that just come out of anything. Jim is someone that you might call strange and unexpected. When Huck
In Addition, matures when he changes from treating Jim badly to treating him as an equal. For example, As Jim and Huck converse about languages and Jim starts a dispute about the subject, Huck replies, ?I see it warn?t no use wasting words you can?t learn a nigger to argue, so I quit? (Twain 92). Huck immaturely believes that Jim has no ability to learn or argue. Huck sees his debate with Jim as ?wasting words.? By saying ?I quit?, Huck shows his impatience with Jim and how he has no
During his journey with Jim, Huck begins to understand his own beliefs better. He comes across many people who test those beliefs and he grows internally because of it. When Huck and Jim discover The Walter Scott, a wrecked steam boat, Huck decides to go on and have an adventure. He discovers two robbers threatening to kill a third. As he?s leaving, Huck feels genuinely sorry for these robbers who are stranded on the wreck. The fact that he is able to feel badly for these terrible people shows that he is maturing. After he comes on land, Huck meets the Sheperdsons who show him the nature of human violence through their feud with the Grangerford family. Huck matures through witnessing the feud and also begins to comprehend the hypocrisy of religion:
We saw a glimpse of Huck’s maturity when he found a robbers stash of gold and had gained a lot of money from it. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it. The Widow Douglass and Miss. Watson were trying to civilize him and make him more of a gentlemen. In fear that his father would take his money, he convinces Judge Thatcher to take it all. Judge Thatcher was the town judge and was a close friend to Huck. Huck gave the money to Judge Thatcher because he trusted him to take care of it. This shows a growth of Huck’s maturity because he is somewhat standing up to his father by not letting him touch his money. Once his father found out that Huck gave away his fortune he was outraged. He then kidnapped Huck and locked him in a cabin Huck decided that the only way he would be able to escape would be to fake his own death. When he decided to fake his own death this showed us how he was thinking more maturely. Although
One component of these chapters that I felt was extremely prevalent was the character development of Huck. There were multiple instances when Huck had to make certain decisions that would effect him in the long run, and with most of those decisions came a moral struggle. It seemed as if within these chapters, Huck is trying to find out who he truly is as a person. One example of these moments is in chapter 16 when he is having an internal battle, trying to convince himself that helping Jim gain his freedom is in fact the right thing to do. The quote reads, “I couldn't get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't rest; I couldn't stay still in one place…I tried to make out to myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner” (Pg. 87). In the quote stated above you can clearly see the internal struggle that Huck goes through, trying to find himself along the way. He looks at the situation with 2 different perspectives, one of them being that taking Jim to gain his freedom is immoral and the wrong thing to do, the other being taking Jim to gain his freedom is the right thing to do. Although Jim knows that either way he will feel guilty but he ends up choosing to take Jim's side because of his loyalty. Jim shows his appreciation to Huck by saying things like, "Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his promise to ole Jim”(Pg. 92), causing Huck
In every man’s life he faces a time that defines his maturation from boyhood to manhood. This usually comes from a struggle that the boy faces in his life. In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck’s defining moment of maturity is Huck’s struggle with Tom in helping Jim escape. Tom sends Huck and Jim through a wild adventure to free Jim because of his Romantic thinking. Tom represents society and its Romantic ideals while Huck struggles to break away from these and become his own realist individual. These Romantic ideas lead Huck into many dangerous situations that pit Huck and Jim as Realist individuals versus a society infused
To start with, Huck already has begun his maturity when he started treating people equally. When he gets to Jackson Island, Huck meets Jim the runaway slave, Jim tells Huck if he promises not to tell anyone that Jim has ran away. ““Well, I did. I said I wouldn’t, and I’ll stick to it. Honest Injun, I will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don’t make no difference.” (43) He said this knowing that if anyone found out he would be shamed by society and possibly worse.this is
In the beginning of the novel Huck is running away (from his mean "Pap" and from restrictions that his aunt was placing on him) but he is also running toward a maturity that has previously eluded him. Huck went through many life-changing episodes in the process of the novel, and they gave him a more mature understanding of how crazy and unpredictable the world can be, from the eyes of a young boy at least.
In Mark Twain's’ Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, age plays a large role in the choices and treatment of the main character Huck Finn. Due to the fact that, at his young age, he has less experience in making decisions as well as less respect from the other characters. In most cases, age always welcomes experience and respect, the higher the number of age the higher the experience and respect volume is.