Huckleberry Finn: End

This post is going to be filled with spoilers. If you are interested in reading Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer, then don’t read this post at all. I’ll start out by saying that I was very satisfied with the ending. Mark Twain tied up every part of the story, some parts I even forgot about. I was lost in Huck and Jim traveling down river, but Tom Sawyer comes back into the story, and at the end Huck’s guardian, the widow, is revisited. Unlike seeing a movie, I don’t have any unanswered questions.

            

            The second half of the book focuses more on the development of characters, rather than the “adventures” the Huck experiences. Just after I posted my mid-point review, Huck and Jim came across 2 con men who are on the run. They take the 2 men aboard their raft. The two men pretend to be the rightful king and dauphin of France. Huck figures out they are lying, but he doesn’t call them out on it. Huck writes, “It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no kings nor dukes at all… I never said nothing… it’s the best way; then you don’t have no quarrels, and don’t get into no trouble” (125). Huck doesn’t want to get into trouble because, despite being runaways, these men still have the authority, as adult white males, to turn him and Jim in. Huck knows this and doesn’t want to himself or Jim to be caught after all the way they’ve come.

           

           Later in the story, Jim is captured while Huck is off on an adventure. Huck goes to find Jim, and the people who have taken him in are relatives of Tom Sawyer, Huck’s best friend. Huck runs into Tom while he is attempting to figure out how to rescue Jim. The 2 friends decide to make it their culminating adventure to rescue Jim. At this point, the reader sees the full development of Huck’s character. He fully breaks free from the racist southern culture he was raised in by making it his ultimate priority to rescue and free Jim.

           

            All-in-all, this is a very good book if you have the time to think about what you’re reading. It’s easy to get lost in the story, but not in a sense that the plot is compelling, the plot is confusing. But if you can look at the events through an analytical lens, it is easy to see why this book is an all-time classic.