Huckleberry Finn DevelopmentHuckleberry Finn DevelopmentIndeed, the beauty, elegance, humor and attractiveness of a book comes from a character or group of characters the author places in the book. It is the ability to bond with a certain character that defines the beauty of reading. As I began reading the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I found myself quickly bonding with a character who’s personality and way of thinking I admired greatly; this character was none other than Huck Finn himself. His journey down the inconsistent peace of the river undoubtedly enabled him to broaden his horizons of understanding and lets not forget, he’s a only a child! To really appreciate this character and be able to see him the way I do, it has to be understood that for any child to go through what he did with calmness and patience is merely impossible let alone having such a solid desire to seek right from wrong. Childhood is usually the time where anything fed is swallowed and usually sits in the belly forever. Whatever the parents judge as right is right, and whatever they say as wrong is wrong; no questions asked (unless you’re in the mood for a good spanking). He makes his own rules and formulates his own judgments on certain things although it may contradict what society has already fed him (reminds me of how I choose to eliminate chunks of my own heritage J). Huck’s moral development began at a very young age and although a bumpy ride, it was because of these bumps that enabled him to succeed (why can’t all kids be like Huck?) And now I believe it is time for me to backup all the things I have just said.
Let’s begin by saying Huck shows his intelligence right from the start. For a child, he uses his common sense and own judgment to such an extent that if something didn’t make sense to him, he rejected it; and that’s the most important thing. When Ms. Douglas tries to preach about Moses, Huck is interested. However, once she tells him Moses died a long time ago, what does Huck say? “..So then I didn’t care no more about him; because I don’t take no stock in dead people (p.2).” When I was being taught about the Prophet Muhammad SAW, I never would have dared to say something like that … Another instance where he refuses to listen to the Widow is when she tells him smoking is bad but doesn’t listen to the Widow and obviously doesn’t think its wrong (because the Widow was snuffing it herself). “I set down again, a shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke; for the house was all as still as death, now, and so the widow wouldn’t know (p.3).” He clearly doesn’t give the slightest bit of care the Widow had said smoking was bad. “She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean (p.2).” He clearly obeyed his own rules.
Another very interesting point to note in the beginning is that he is very hard to fool. He doesn’t seem to fall into traps that easily if he sees no sense in them. When Tom was trying to explain the whole concept of the genie coming out of a lamp, Huck simply didn’t get it. After much explaining, Tom gave up as Huck kept asking logical questions, which he expected logical answers to. “Shucks, it ain’t no use talking to you Huck Finn(P.11).” As we can see, it is the beginning of the novel and Huck has begun to use his own judgment to dissect certain situations. “So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer’s lies. As for me, I think different (p.11).” Summerizing these incidents, he refuses to listen to the Widow, calls his best friend a liar and is basically getting
p.11 right to the wall. But, he is pretty much an average guy when it comes to logic. But this is when he finally has the opportunity to understand what’s real and there it’s pretty much. Here, Huck actually has the opportunity to come up with a very clever rational answer. When he did think he was going to be able to tell the whole truth of all this, he realized how easy it would be. He didn’t go back and try to tell anything other than, basically, he wanted to say that it really wasn’t possible’ that what the Widow is saying was false. In that same moment, Huck finds some very powerful insight: If we don’t know what will happen when the Widow returns at the end of the first chapter, what will happen? And he does, he found himself in that situation. You can see, at the start he only had to listen to an isolated line, a very specific thought, that wasn’t a lie. That was a different reality when, at the end of her last chapter, the Widow and Tom finally got what they wanted: They didn’t know what happened to the Widow after all. The more Huck realized, the more he felt he had no choice but to make the call to rescue Tom at the last moment. So, while I’m happy to admit that Huck was not as smart as Tom, the fact that what he was doing during the middle of the last chapter was actually the correct interpretation of the events indicates that Huck is a very clever guy. I would argue that if Huck were a more creative writer, the sort of things he would look for with the first book would have been more believable. But Huck isn’t. I’m just telling you that Huck doesn’t have the brain to read the novel the way Tom does. He’s just a little bit too young for me to notice or care about this. What he does have is very rich and very good at predicting things. I’m sure that Huck can really handle the information, but that’s mostly because he has a rather simple mind and he has great reason for thinking. Once again the reader will notice Huck’s lack of intelligence. When we first read the book, Huck had a very clear definition of what the Widow was. When he read the first chapter, he had a certain amount of uncertainty. But over and over he used this ambiguity to make sense of what was going on with Tom. He would never be able to guess what was going on, because once he had something to say he was able to apply his rational thinking. Thus, he didn’t really have to listen to this logical thought from the Widow. In fact, Huck never really got that idea as opposed to just saying this is what it looked like in Tom’s head. Huck has a very logical mind as he learns about all possible scenarios in the world. In the end however, he really just needs this logic to explain what can happen. Tom’s situation is one where