Huckle Berry Finn

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, the Mississippi River is one of the most consequential elements of the story. The river becomes many things to Huck the other characters in the story, and on many occasions has significant effect on their fates. The river is of great importance on both the physical and symbolic level, almost to the point where it becomes one of the characters. Huckleberry Finn is a picaresque: a particularly humorous piece of …showed first 75 words of 443 total…

…showed last 75 words of 443 total…movement parallel Huck’s gradual maturation. The direction Huck moves on the river reflects his development into his own person. He moves North on the river but eventually turns southward; similarly, he begins to make very adult decisions but then regresses into Tom Sawyer’s second banana in the latter third of the novel. Perhaps Twain’s placement of such emphasis and detail upon the river was influenced by his days as a riverboat pilot.