Why Is Pap Important In Huck Finn

Pap is only stuck on having power and he gets it by treating blacks like the lower class citizen. Twain uses his characters in this book to show that the stereotypical southerner is irrationally greedy. He begins to show the reader this by first using Pap. The character Pap is Huck’s father and is labeled the town drunk.

When Pap returns for Huck, and the matter of custody is brought before the court. Huck is then forced to witness firsthand the corruption of society. Society has a reach on every part of Huck’s life as the judge thatcher rules that Huck belongs to Pap, due to the societal norm that a father should be with his soon putting Huck in the situation to obey an evil and unfit man. One who drinks and later beats his son without any consequence as it is common practice for individuals not interfere with divinity of the family unit. Later, when Huck makes it look as though he has been killed, another moral fault is seen as civilization is more concerned about a dead body than it is in the welfare of living people.

Even though Pap is Huck’s biological father, he is everything a father shouldn’t be. For example, he constantly leaves Huck home alone, confined in his cabin for a long period of time. "Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for wiskey and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me."(Twain 35) This quote not only shows that Huck was left on his own, it also shows that Pap is not a suitable father because of his drinking problem, and also his abusive behavior. His drinking problem is not only a waste of money, but it is a dangerous addiction not only for Pap’s health, but for Huck’s. "He chased me round and round the place with a clasp knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me, and then I couldent come for him no more. I begged, and told him I was only Huck; but he laughed such a screechy laugh, and roared and cussed , and kept on chasing me up." (39) This quote shows that during one of his hallucinations, he almost kills Huck. Alcohol

In Mark Twain`s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain demonstrates Pap to be one of the main sources of hypocrisy in the novel. For instance, when Pap returns back into Huck`s life the first thing he does is threaten him to leave school and give up his money in order for him to drink. Pap tells Huck “you think you`re better than your father, now don’t you, because he can`t [read]?

Though not technically an orphan, Huck seems to wish he were, as he provides insight to his indifference towards his father: "Pap hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him no more" (226). Upon returning, Pap inflicts such physical and mental abuse on Huck, including captivating him, that Huck resolves to not only flee the situation, but also kill his father, after being threatened with a knife. "I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure [the gun] was loaded, and then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down behind it to wait for him to stir" (237). Huck clearly resents the man enough to want to kill him, yet can not do so: though Twain employs weariness as the preventive factor, Huck's inaction despite his desire epitomizes his conflicted nature.

The first contrast between Jim and Pap is the initial reaction Huck has when encountering them. When Huck is on Jackson’s Island, presumably alone, but then comes across a smoldering fire, he is at first frightened, but once he sees that the other refugee is Jim, he pops right out of the bushes and greets him. He is glad for his company. However, when signs of Pap being around are apparent, Huck is seen to panic, and rushes off to rid himself of his fortune. He knows that Pap is greedy enough to steal from anyone, even his own son. When they come face to face, it becomes clear that Huck is afraid of his father, who used to beat him while in a drunken state. During this confrontation, it becomes clear that Pap resents that Huck is being educated, and feels threatened by it. On the contrary, Jim teaches Huck what he knows, and is proud of him for thinking up schemes, such as faking his death to escape his father’s grasp. As Jim and Huck travel together, Jim shows more consideration and a protective nature for Huck, and he tries to act, as much as he can, as a shield between Huck and the corrupt world, which is something Huck’s father never did. On the contrary, Pap exposed Huck to more corruption than most others his age, such as Tom Sawyer, were expected to have been exposed to.

Huck has had enough with their failed relationship, deciding he can handle such an atrocity, he decides he will run away from his monster of an alcoholic father. Pap will never be able to have a relationship with his father, because he was probably drunk, got into an argument and was shot and killed. Alcoholic parents’ actions often hinder the child’s ability to tell what is right from wrong.

Mark Twain satires society and portrays it as being uncivilized with drunkenness (Nyirubugara). As mentioned in the beginning of the novel, Pap is the first person introduced as being a drunk. Pap did not like the fact that Huck was becoming smarter than him and when he regained custody of Huck he made sure that Huck stopped going to school. Since Huck was no longer in school, he spent most of his days protecting himself from his drunken father’s abuse, so once he ran away it was not hard for him to shift into adulthood.

Much of the book focuses on the white people, which seems to make them the protagonists and therefore the “good” people but Twain actually makes the white people “bad” overall.  In general, the white people of the story show many bad qualities including being prejudice and selfish.  Right from the beginning of the story, one of the worst characters is introduced as Huckleberry’s dad, Pap.  Pap is both egotistic and prejudice.  He only comes to find Huck because he wants to take all of  Huck's’ money for himself.  Although Pap is not able to take all of Huck's money, he does force Huck to give him small increments of money from time to time.  Once Pap is kicked out of the town, he kidnaps Huck to impose what he thinks is the correct lifestyle on Huck.  Not only is Pap a bad influence because he is always drinking or drunk, but he also

Huck’s father, Pap was a drunk who tried to extort money from Huck to buy whiskey and often physically abused Huck. Pap’s character dynamic setup the beginning of the Huck’s adventure because he was the reason Huck staged his death and ran away in the first place. Boggs, similar to Pap, is the town drunk. “ He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle;... Everybody yelled at him, and laughed at him and sassed him and he sassed back... he’d come to town to kill Colonel

Pap does not care about Huck, his flesh and blood. Jim shows more concern for Huck’s well-being than Huck’s own father which is why Huck and Jim’s relationship can be viewed as a father-son

Pap stays in and out of prison for his numerous drunken behaviors. "He hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for [Huck]; [He] didn't want to see him no more" (Twain 9). When out of jail, Pap often physically and verbally abused the boy. There left no reason for Huck to desire the presence of his father. However, the presence of Miss Watson and Widow Douglas failed as one Huck desired much of either; not because they abused Huck, but because they wished to teach him how to act civilized. "

One of the ways Twain exposes the folly of the negative attitudes toward blacks is through describing the whites' cruel and pointless acts of hatred directed toward Jim. The least severe of the cruel acts toward Jim is that whites often ridicule him. Another dehumanizing act is when Jim is made to hide his face in the daytime. The most foolish and ignorant idea of the whites, however, is when Silas Phelps locked up Jim. Another demonstration of the whites' folly is when Pap, Huck's father, violently objects to the granting of suffrage to a black man. Pap does not take into consideration that this man is an educated professor; he believes that he is superior to this black man simply because of the color of his skin. In actuality, however, Pap is an uneducated drunk. This adds to the irony of the white's actions.

For quite some time, Huck’s father disappeared from town only to arrive later when he heard that his son had acquired a small fortune. He then threatens to beat Huck “down a peg” so that he would remind him of his status in the family only hoping to get the fortune for his booze. Things only get worse when Pa learns that Huck has become the first member of the family to learn to read, and consequently takes him away from town down the river into a small cabin. Cleverly, Pa doesn’t want to abandon Huck just yet for he continuously threatens the Father about the fortune he has hidden until Huck finally fakes his own death. Pa would be a fine example of a specimen who was unworthy of his breath by the way he treated Huck.

Child abuse had a great on effect Huck’s whether if it had to do with where he is living or a decision he has made. Huck has been abused for most if not all of his life by his father, Pap. Huck stated, “I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much” (17). This quote shows how Huck had to deal with Pap’s abuse before and could not help himself. It shows that Pap has poor ethics shown by beating his child simply because he can. This is an immoral act on Pap’s part because he believes he can control Huck’s life including his life choices and his possessions. Pap says, “I’ll take you down a peg, before I'm done with you” (17). Pap continues to torment and threaten Huck even though he has not been around of the most recent parts of Huck’s life. Pap’s ideologies have not changed since Huck was younger. Pap’s ideals consist of being able to do what he wants when he wants. This was apparent when he tries to threaten Huck and put himself above Huck. In the 1800s community leaders felt responsible for helping orphaned or abandoned