The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a work often named among the great American novels, written by the native Missourian Samuel L. Clemens, better know by his nom de plume Mark Twain. In it, the tales of a boy, Huckleberry Finn, are told in a natural American style, almost unknown in the year of 1884. As the narrator, Huck Finn tells the story of his and a runaway slave's exploits as they traverse the great Mississippi river, as well as the towns and people surrounding it.

'You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.'

As Huckleberry Finn tell us in the opening lines of his story, we need not of read Tom Sawyer to understand this story, as it is almost entirely a stand-alone work. Huckleberry Finn is a poor boy, what some would call 'Swamp Trash'. However, he does not find having no shoes and being permanently covered in dirt humiliating in the least. In fact, he finds it far more favorable than having to mind his manners and get gussied up for church every Sunday. But Huck Finn's comfortable life living with the old Widow Douglas, an old woman who has taken him in, is soon to be disrupted by his alcoholic and abusive father. To escape from his father's cabin, Huck fakes his own death and takes off to a seldom-visited island. There he meets Jim, a black slave who had just learned that he was to be sold to a man in New Orleans, where slaves were reputably treated very badly. Huck agrees to travel down the Mississippi on a raft with Jim, and together they encounter a staggeringly large amount of adventures, including runaway-slave hunters, a couple of murderous mutineers, a family feud, and two river rats known as the 'King' and the 'Duke' who bring along their own boat-load of trouble.

The entire book comes to its climactic ending adventure when Huckleberry Finn is mistaken for none other than his very good friend Tom Sawyer. Tom's aunt, Aunt Sally, and her husband have not seen their nephew for ages, so immediately assume this young boy at their doorstep is their visiting relative. Huckleberry Finn is in the vicinity in the first place to rescue Jim, who was betrayed and handed over to Tom's aunt and uncle as a cotton-picking slave. With Jim being locked in an old rickety shack, Huck believes he will not have much trouble releasing his friend from imprisonment, until Tom Sawyer himself shows up, complicating matters to no end. The undertaking and conclusion of this escapade is incredibly hilarious.

Mark Twain did a wonderful job of satirically condemning the institutional racism that was prevalent in the 1800's. He shows it as it truly is: Absolutely absurd. To think that a person does not wish to be free or care for their own family, or not be sold and taken from their home at a moments notice just because of their skin color is incredibly absurd. And despite Huckleberry Finn growing up in the South, where everybody had a slave, or knew somebody who owned a slave,  and to aid a runaway slave was considered a grave sin, he manages to still be a character who is always concerned about what is morally right, despite telling himself several times that it's just too much trouble even trying to be good, and he might as well give it up, as he is just plain bad. In fact, Huck Finn has such a moral compass that he does things he wholeheartedly believes to be wrong, just because he knows he will feel terrible if he does the alternative.

This whole book in incredibly witty, but I will just share with you a few of my favorite lines... Well, quite a few, but I couldn't leave any of them out, could I? Here they are:

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'Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was most free - and who was to blame for it? Why, me.'

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'Jim said that bees won't sting idiots, but I didn't believe that, because I tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn't sting me.'

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'Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows better.'

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Huckleberry Finn: '"Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of?"'

Tom Sawyer: '"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sort and women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that;"'...

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'I do believe [Jim] cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so.'

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Huck: '"Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan."'

Tom: '"That ain't nothing; we can get him some."'

Huck: '"Can't nobody read his plates."'

Tom: '"That ain't got nothing to do with it, Huck Finn. All he's got to do is to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't have to be able to read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner writes on a tin plate, or anywhere else."'

Huck: '"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?"'

Tom: '"Why, blame it all, it ain't the prisoner's plates."'

Huck: '"But it's somebody's plates, ain't it?"'

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There are plenty more good ones, but I mustn't take up all your time. Just go read the book. It's very beneficial to your psychic 😄

~ Irene