Huck Finn Essay - Twain Portrays Coming of Age

Twain Portrays Coming of Age

After reading the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by, Mark Twain, we see a major transformation in Huck. In the beginning of the book, Huck was just an ignorant boy who lived with the widow, Miss Watson and by the end he is able to make realizations and gain knowledge from all of his adventures. Some of the observations he makes are mostly about society. Huck sees how society treats black people and he discovers his feelings throughout his journey as well. Huck also sees the bad and good in others. For example, he sees the negative effects of greed in the duke and the king, but on the other hand he sees the good in Jim and sees him for more than a slave. Through Huck's experiences, Mark Twain illustrates the transformation from an innocent and ignorant boy to a young man.

Twain succeeds in informing us scarcely about Huck's past. We know that Pap was not good to Huck at all and beat him. He was obviously very young when he started doing this to Huck so he was not really capable of defending himself from Pap. Huck also went through his life watching his Dad get Drunk very frequently."Y es, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in these parts for a year or more." (2.13). This gives a little bit of insight about how pleasant of a home-life Pap gave his son. Huck was able to grow up all on his own with almost no guidance. The widow tried to help Huck grow up, but with Huck's unwillingness to want to be civilized, it made it hard to have a good home life. Pap didn't want Huck to be successful and that's why he went back to get Huck's money and tell him education is stupid. Huck's non related family is more family to him than his Pap was. Being stubborn is showing how Huck as an immature boy, but even with all the criticism Huck receives; he still manages to keep an ongoing attitude throughout the book. This shows a sense of maturity in Huck because he is able to overcome obstacles.

Huck tells many stories, steals, and does other ignorant actions throughout the novel, but we see how he goes from this to seeing how these things are wrong. Although Huck does steal and commit other crimes, he still remains innocent because he acts as a sidekick to Tom. This is a part of how Huck comes of age in the book. Huck says to Tom, "Must we always kill the people? Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it's considered best to kill them" (6). We see that within this quote, it shows how innocent Huck is and that he doesn't really know a lot about what he is doing. He is obviously doing something extremely wrong, but he doesn't yet realize how wrong his actions are.

When Huck sees how the Duke and the King maneuver people and steal to get money from