by John Devera

Created on: August 28, 2008

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is the most important novel ever written in America. If there is a Great American Novel, this is it. In fact, if someone wanted a snapshot, a perfect example, an illustration of what it means to be an American, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn would be the ideal book.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are ostensibly about a boy from an extremely dysfunctional family who goes on an adventure, assisting an escaped slave to achieve his freedom in the process. Huckleberry, who has discovered a treasure trove in a previous novel, is now faced with the strictures of becoming civilized. He chafes under the kind tutelage of a kindly widow, and he gently but firmly resents the lack of freedom a civilized life of going to school and church, living in a safe and secure home, and wearing shoes. When his abusive father returns to St. Petersburg in order to get some of Huck's money, Huck is taken out of this too wholesome environment and forced to live in a shack, a virtual prisoner. Huck escapes using a very creative ploy. He takes off on a raft down the Mississippi River, meeting an escaped slave named Jim. They go through several adventures, getting separated at times, meeting feuding families. They meet some charlatans who plan on turning in Jim. Tom Sawyer comes up with a plan to help Jim escape, but it doesn't go as planned, and Tom is shot. But not to worry, everything turns out okay in the end.

It sure seems like this is just a typical boy's adventure story. And the first time you read it, you might be fooled into believing that. But the novel is more than just adventure. In fact, it perfectly describes the American ethos, the American spirit, the American personality. Consider Huck's decision to assist Jim escape. Huckleberry is torn between what he mistakenly considers a moral obligation to turn in Jim to the authorities, and assisting him to escape, which he internally knows is the right thing to do. When he decides to help Jim, he honestly believes that he is dooming his soul to perdition. But he does it anyway because it's the right thing to do.

"It was a close place. I took . . . up [the letter I'd written to Miss Watson], and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: "All right then, I'll go to hell" and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was

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