‘All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn’ (Coveney, 2003, p.12).
Transatlantic writer Samuel Clemens (1835-1910) gave the world The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1844. Growing up in Antebellum southern American society, with the backdrop of the Mississippi river in his boyhood provoked the settings for his novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and later sequel Huckleberry Finn (1884). The intention of this essay is to explore the themes of liberty and freedom within Huckleberry Finn, paying particular attention to personal, social and racial struggles, presented by Twain through the eyes of protagonists Huck and Jim, dealing with their oppressions and struggles with what liberty or freedom truly means to them. Twain writes of his novel, ‘A book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat’ (Levy, 1964, p.383). Twain uses Jim to voice the term ‘Sound heart’ for the most part, and the reader is privy to Huck’s own struggle with both a ‘Sound heart’ and a ‘Deformed conscience’.
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Personal Liberty
The battle of personal freedom for Jim and Huck is apparent throughout the novel, Huck appears to be fighting against the constraints of society and civilisation from his initial setting whereby he is isolated inside the widow’s house, he feels strangled by the widow and her ‘Dismal, regular and decent ways’ (Twain, 1966, p.49). Huck’s only way of feeling free is to remove them new clothes that made him ‘Sweat and sweat and feel all crampled up’ (p.49). The antagonism in this sees his battle to understand what it truly means to be free or to be held captive, in this statement Huck is struggling with what he feels to be the suffocation of civilization. Twain presents to the reader the way in which Huck frees himself from his apparent situation, is to climb out of the window and to be at one with nature, Emerson’s influence on Twain is felt here with Huck truly needing to be out of the house and away from any maternal constraints to be free, this is displayed in Emerson’s essay ‘Nature’ (1836) in which he argues that freedom can only truly be found as a child, he displays sentiment regarding how grown adults lack the capacity to embrace nature and therefore, can never truly be free; ‘To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. [...] the sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child (Emerson Central, 2019). Out of context, this quote vindicates Huck’s desires to be free from the widow as she simply cannot acknowledge the struggle that Huck faces. Additionally, the reader is exposed to influences from Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Paine believed that no generation should legislate the next, Twain uses a conversation between the widow and Huck to disclose this;
‘Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn’t [...] and she took snuff too; of course, that was all right, because she done it herself’ (p.50). The display of hypocrisy here on Twain’s part is a key reason why he made his predominant protagonist a child and are key indicators of his respect for his predecessors Emerson and Paine.
Social Liberty
Twain’s influences for writing stem from many factors such as his boyhood in Hannibal, the abolition of slavery in America and the American civil war, however, what can be also be considered an influence in Twain’s work is the Transcendental philosophical movement, developed in the late 1820’s led by key thinkers such as Emerson and Thoreau. This can be seen in Huckleberry Finn and the underlying transcendentalist views of romantic relationships with freedom. Jim and Huck’s sole purpose in life is to flirt with the idea of freedom, yet neither will ever truly be free. After discovering Jim on the island the pair gives birth to the eternal friendship and trust between them, Jim discloses his escape details, which contextually for the epoch means a serious crime has been committed and the reader should see Huck lack compassion for Jim’s freedom and dutifully turn in the escaped slave. Essences of Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience (1848) are seen in Huck’s decision to revolt against the conscience dictate of the law in his wrestle with what society expects of him ‘People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum - but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t going to tell, and I ain’t going back there anyways’ (p.96).
Twain’s use of irony here is that whilst the term abolitionist is loathed in southern states as southerners believe in their right to hold slaves, that Huck is, in fact, acting as an abolitionist to ensure his role in aiding Jim’s freedom is not compromised. Moreover, herein are two characters who are not considered to be equal to one another. Further into the conversation,
Huck makes a display of empathy when Jim becomes hysterical at the prospect of discovering Cairo, for Jim is desperate to ensure he remains free: ‘Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom [...] it began to make me feel all trembly and feverish, too, [...] I begun to get it through my head that he was most free -and who was to blame for it? Why me’ (p.145).
What is seen in chapter sixteen at this point is Huck’s internal battle with what society expects of white men, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 passed by Congress guarantees rights for a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave or ‘fugitive’ as referred to in the act. Although still only a child, Huck is socially and morally aware of what is expected of him at this point and his wrestle with his conscience is clear; ‘I tried to make out to myself that I warn’t to blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it warn’t no use, conscience up and says, every time, But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could have paddled ashore and told somebody’ (p.145).
The theme of ‘manifest destiny’ can be seen throughout Huckleberry Finn, with his desire to ‘light out for the territory’ (p.369) Huck’s active appetite for independence records him as a symbol of American individualism. The ideals of a ‘manifest destiny’ justified westward expansion and therefore, Huck never stops, although only a young boy he appears to continue to move forward towards a greater life, in addition to this the fear is apparent that bad things will occur should the pair stop at any point on their journey. From chapter seven of the novel, the reader is exposed to Huck’s most powerful vessel of escape - the Mississippi river. The river in Huckleberry Finn is symbolic of freedom for both Huck and Jim, for Huck in this chapter the river is a means of escape from the entrapment/torture of his father ‘pap’. Having been taken to the cabin in this chapter, the cabin represents both a place of escape for Huck and a place to escape the grip of his father’s control by escaping from it.
Racial Liberty
Throughout the novel the reader is presented with Huck’s difficulties in dealing with his struggle for liberty in many forms, however, for Jim’s character, the struggle for liberty is also met with the struggle to escape the shackles of racial oppression. The American civil war of 1861-1865 saw the northern and southern states fight over the abolition of slavery, the civil wars lasting effects would see the thirteenth amendment take place, entailing the abolition of slavery in America. However, it is the opinion of this essay that whilst Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation ended slavery in the southern states, that Twain’s portrayal of Jim is an expose for the underlying truth that slavery was far from abolished and that the black people were not truly liberated. Despite the Declaration of Independence stating in 1776 that ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal [...] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ (USHistory.org, 1995), introduced to the reader in chapter two of the novel is Jim who displays spirituality, tenderness and non-violence, in contrast with Huck’s father ‘pap’ who uses Huck merely as a cash-cow and means for control, and the widow who Huck assumes wants to control him with her ‘Sivilized’ yet ‘regular’ and ‘decent ways’ (p.49). Jim truly sees Huck as a friend and confidant despite the two protagonists having different skin colours and Huck being only a child, this does not matter to Jim, ‘I’s a free man, en I couldn’t ever ben free ef it hadn’ ben for Huck, You’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had’ (p.92). Out of context, Twain is attempting to break down racial barriers here and show the world that the importance here is not the colour of the man’s skin and the liberation of freedom for Jim far overshadows this.
Jim’s influence on Huck is pivotal to Huck’s mission for freedom. Meeting on the River island away from these models of adulthood, comes the revelation from Jim that he has fled due to discovering the widow’s sister’s plan to sell him down the river and ultimately away from his family: ‘I hear ole missus tell do widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans [...] I lit out mighty quick, I tell you’ (p. 96). At this vital turning point in the novel, the reader is aware that morally Huck is obliged to whistleblow on Jim, however, Huck views Jim almost as a surrogate father and therefore, allows his heart to rule his head in not revealing Jim’s location as a runaway slave. Moreover, herein we witness Huck’s own internal battle with his conscientious decision to not return the runaway to the rightful owner, Huck wrestles the morality of his actions in contrast with the way the widow tried to take care of him and here we see Twain’s ‘Sound heart’ and ‘Deformed conscience’ in full throttle. ‘What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? [...] she tried to learn you your book [...] That’s what she done’ (p.91). The irony in this statement from Huck is that in the same wrestle he is blaming himself as his conscience reminds him: ‘But you knowed he was running for his freedom’ (p.91).
Throughout the novel, Jim’s desire to reach a free state and to be able to ‘Buy his wife [...] and work to buy the two children’ (p.91) is conclusively apparent. None more so than in chapter sixteen, Jim associates reaching Cairo with reaching freedom and in doing so would become ‘A free man the minute he seen it’ (p.90).
However, both of the protagonists are socially aware at this point what it would mean for them should their mission be a failure, but none more so than for Jim whereby ‘He’d be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom’ (p.91). For Rampersad cited in Fultz (1993) Twain’s ‘Gesture at historicizing Huck’s adventures with Jim places the issue of black character and culture squarely in the context of the search for freedom’, furthermore, Rampersad praises Twain for his portrayal of a ‘Good, deeply human man’ in Jim, but notes that Jim has been portrayed as too ‘Anxious’ for freedom.
Right to the very end of his journey Huck consistently re-affirms his desire to remain free from what he deems to be constraints: ‘But I reckon I got to light out for territory, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before’ (P.369). One has to assume that due to the dismay which occurs wherever the pair become motionless that the freedom that they so desire by reaching Cairo is misconstrued and ill-informed. Therefore, reaching Cairo does not represent freedom but ‘Merely other forms in society in which Huck and Jim would be oppressed’ (Burg, 1974, p.300). For Eliot, the river in Huckleberry Finn represents both power and freedom for the pair, Eliot argues that it ‘Controls the voyage of Huck and Jim’ (Eliot, 1950, p.1). The river does equal freedom to the pair but in different ways, for Huck, the river symbolises an ongoing journey of escape and continuation, for Jim the river is more a path to freedom, a path to escape the chains of society forevermore.
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