The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Becca writes:


            The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about a boy, Huck Finn, who grew up with a very different life than most of us have. Huck’s mother was not in his life and so it was his father, Pap Finn, raising him in the wilderness. Pap was always getting drunk and beating Huck, providing him with a reason to be terrified of his father. Huck was most comfortable in the wilderness on his own, especially after Pap disappeared, with torn clothes and bad manners. At the end of the previous book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Huck and his friend Tom find six thousand dollars apiece of robbers’ money that is confiscated by Judge Thatcher for good keeping and to get interest. The Widow decides to take Huck in and civilize him which takes some getting used to for Huck. He is expected to wash up for dinner, be at dinner on time, and not create a mess, which are all things he is not used to. Huck is also expected to attend school daily. At the beginning Huck despises school and all other civilized things, but as time goes on he begins to tolerate and even like them a little, though he would never admit that. After a while at the Widow’s, Tom decides to start a gang of robbers who will act as the pirates in his books. They never end up stealing anything but have fun imagining their adventures. All is going well for Huck when he notices familiar footprints in the snow by The Widow’s house. At once, Huck realizes that his father is back in town. Huck runs to The Judge’s house and gives the money in his name to The Judge, knowing that he cannot have more than a penny to his name with his father in town. Pap shows up in Huck’s room and creates problems. He takes Huck’s money and when The Judge and The Widow try to gain legal custody of Huck they are denied by a judge who does not know the ways of Pap Finn. Pap ends up kidnapping Huck and bringing him to a cabin down the river where he keeps the door locked and a shotgun under his pillow. Huck wants desperately to escape and go far away where his father and The Widow are not so he begins to saw his way out of the cabin when his father is in town getting drunk.

 

            The main conflict in this story so far revolves around Pap Finn. Things are going well for Huck until he shows up with trouble. Pap seems to think that he is the boss of Huck and that Huck owes his life to him. Pap says that he killed himself raising Huck and now that Huck finally reaches an age where he can be of any help he wants to disown his own father. Pap is also very upset by the fact that Huck can now read because he is the first of the family to be able to do that. Pap feels that Huck is trying to prove that he is better than his family and forbids Huck from returning to school. Huck wants to be away from his father but he is not too keen on the idea of going back to civilized life with The Widow so he has no idea what to do or how to get out of the reach of Pap.