Huck Finn Reflection

The book named The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American writer Mark Twain,
has some connections to my final position statement which says What America surely needs
now is a return to those original ideals that have been the sources of her greatness Americas
need, and the worlds need, today, is a new burst of American pioneering, and this time not just
within the confines of a single continent but all around the globe.-Arnold Toynbee. At the
beginning of the book Huck is living with a widow named Douglas who is kind but can be harsh
at times and she lives with her sister Miss Watson. Huck who is illiterate does not like his new
life of going to school and church, learning proper manners and how to be clean but when he
joins Tom Sawyer's gang, he seems to be happier. Things go well for Huck until his drunk beat
father returns, and he demands the court for custody of Huck. Hucks pap successfully gets
custody of Huck and begins to beat on Huck. Huck who is sick of getting beat on fakes his death
and begins a new life. He meets Jim a runaway slave on the island he is hiding on and they
become good friends. They then experience many adventures together and at the end of the
book Jim becomes a free man. This story of Huck Finn has some correlations to my final
position statement.
The idea of Huck coming from a rough beginning and place and then changing his life
around connects to an original ideal of America which is anyone from any background can have
success in their life. Huck experiences a rough childhood with his father who is constantly drunk
and beating on him. Although hes just a young child, he begins a new life by faking his death
and meeting Jim. With Jim he begins to experiences many new adventures and learns a lot. For
example Huck becomes a very good actor by telling slave catchers that Jim has smallpox and
that hes really sick in order to scare them away. The slave hunters come up to Hucks raft and
begin to interrogate Huck. They explain that they are on the hunt for 5 slaves and that they want
to go check out Jim. Huck then smartly says, because its pap thats there and maybe youd
help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. Hes sick and so is mam and Mary Ann. The

slave hunters then are fearful that Jim has smallpox causing them to give Huck some money out
of grief and they leave right away without getting near Jim at all. In this example, Huck is
expressing American creativity, similar to the creative minds that made America as snazzy as its
been these past 300 years. Huck shows that just because his father was beating on him when
he was young as well as being uneducated, he still has much potential. Hucks character
connects to my final position statement because of his creativity and rough beginning but he is
trying to make the most of it.
Jims character is an example of why we should not return to all of the original ideals of
America. Twain expresses that Jim the slave is as human as anyone else and shows Jims
complex emotions and his struggle throughout his life. Jim runs away to prevent being sold to
another family in order to try and become a free man. He does this because he wants to save
his family. An example of when Jim shows his emotion towards his family is when he says, "Jim
talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he
would do when he got to a free state he would go to saving up money and never spend a single
cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife which was owned on a farm close to
where Miss Watson lived and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their
master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an Ab'litionist to go and steal them. This quote itself shows
the wrong doing of taking a man from his family due to the original ideal of America which is
slavery is ok when now it is clearly not. This quote also shows evidence that Mr.Twain was not
trying to be racist because he was expressing the emotional struggle that Jim was dealing with
to proven he just like anyone else.Although Mr.Toynbee is not saying we should still have
slavery, it should be made clear that we should learn from our mistakes from the past and we
can reuse some of the ideals that helped make America great.
Another connection is seen throughout the book when Huck is struggling with an old
American ideal that slavery is okay within America. Throughout the book he feels guilty about
protecting and hiding Jim the runaway slave. Huck feels as if he keeps helping Jim he could go

to hell for helping a runaway slave. Huck struggles many times with the thought of helping Jim
and the guilt begins to build in Huck. He finally decides to write Miss.Watson a letter letting her
know where Jim was and this was a very key part of the book. In the book it says I studied a
minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: all right, then Ill go to hell--- and
tore it up. It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said;
and never thought no more about reforming. This was a key part to the book because Huck
decides that the ideal of slavery is wrong and he will do anything to help save Jim from slavery.
It also connect to my final position statement because it is saying slavery is wrong and this
shouldnt be an ideal of Americans. This also gives Huck the outsider persona in society
because he refuses to give into what society tells him and does what he feels is right. Ultimately
Huck does not give into the ideal that slavery is alright and Jim has to be returned to
Miss.Watson.
In general this book shows the positives and negatives of Mr.Toynbees idea of returning
to the old ideals of America. Some of the positives included American creativity, making the
most out of nothing, and being able to do almost anything in this country and the negative was
the immoral abuse of having slaves and taking people away from their families. It is important
that people understand that the ideals of old America had some flaws but were mostly excellent.
Slavery was a blemish of what the old ideals of America were and that is why if we are going to
reuse some of these ideals we need to take the good with the bad.