1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Themes/Symbols

2. Freedom: (Jim and Huck are on a quest for freedom from social constraints) p. 1 “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me…She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up…The widow rang a bell for supper, and you had to come on time. When you got to the table you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the vituals.” p. 24 Huck’s with Pap: “It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study….” P. 80 Huck and Jim on the river: “We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free states, and then be out of trouble.”

3. Freedom Continued Pg. 87 “Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom.” Pg. 205 “So in two seconds away we went a- sliding down the river, and it did seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river, and nobody to bother us.” Pg.290 “Old Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river, and said so; and she set him free in her will.”

4. Freedom Continued 2 P. 26 “I had tried to get out of that cabin many a time, but I couldn’t find no way.” P. 91 “…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… 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”

5. Racism p. 57 Mrs. Loftus states “The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there’s a reward out for him – three hundred dollars. And there’s a reward out for old Finn, too – two hundred dollars. You see, he come to town the morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out with ‘em on the ferryboat hunt, and right away after he up and left…The next night they found out the nigger was gone; they found out he hadn’t been seen sence ten o’clock the night the murder was done.” p. 76 “Well he (Jim) was right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger.” p.80 “I see it warn’t no use wasting words-you can’t learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.” P. 88 When Jim discusses his plans when he is free, Huck states “Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, ‘Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell.’ Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children-children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a know I didn’t even know ; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm.”

6. Racism cont.. 156 Huck learns about Jim’s feelings toward his daughter Elizabeth. He did not know she was deaf and he struck for not listening to him when he called her. Huck realizes that blacks have emotions and feelings which he was initially unaware of. P.285 Jim is recaptured after the great escape fails: “The men was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to all the other niggers around there, so they wouldn’t be trying to run away like Jim done, and making such a raft of trouble…but the others said, don’t do it…he ain’t our nigger, and his owner would turn up and make us pay for him, sure.” (also an example for slavery)

7. slavery Pg. 27 “….why ain’t this nigger put at auction and sold?” Pg. 221 “Good gracious! Anybody hurt?””No’m, killed a nigger.” “Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.” Pg.237 “I wonder if uncle silas is going to hang this nigger. If I was to catch a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, I wouldn’t give him up, I’d hang him”

8. Slavery p.43 “Ole missus – dat’s Miss Watson – she pecks on m e all de time, en treets me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn’ sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz an nigger trader roun’ de place….en I hear old missus tell de wider she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans.” P. 43 “she could git eight hund’d dollars for me, eh it’s uz sich a big stack o’money she couldn’ resis” P.88 “Jim talked out loud…saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free state would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife…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.” P 4.Jim is “Miss Watson’s nigger”

9. Slavery cont. Pg.91 “If you see any runaway nigger you get help and nab them and you can make some money.” Pg.106 “Each person has their own nigger to wait on them-Buck too. My nigger had a monstrous easy time…”

10. Huck’s moral education (Huck matures and develops throughout the novel. Huck chooses not to conform to social expectations and precepts and instead follows his own conscience.) p. 84 Huck: “Well, this it too many for me, Jim. I hain’t seen no fog, nor no islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon I done the same. … so of course you’ve been dreaming.” Jim: “… my heart wuz mos’ broke bekse you wuz los’, en I didn’ k’yer no’ mo’ what become er me en de raf’. En when I wake up en fine you back ag’in, all safe en soun’, de tears some, en I dould a got down on my knees en kiss yo’ foot, I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin’ ‘bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is trash; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en make ‘em ashamed.” P. 86 Huck apologizes to Jim for his trick about the fog: “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterward, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way.” p. 155 “He was thinking about his wife and children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick…and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for theirn’.” Jim was thinking about his wife and children and was homesick. Huck realizes he cared just as much for his people as white people do for their own.

11. Huck’s moral education continued… p. 126 Huck lies to the duke and king about Jim. He says that his father, younger brother and slave Jim left for New Orleans but their raft was struck by a steamboat; only Jim and Huck survived. p. 175 Huck decides to steal the money from the duke and king and return it: “I felt too ornery and low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind’s made up; I’ll have that money for them (Wilks’ sisters) or bust.” He decides to tell Mary Jane the truth about what was going on and that the duke and king were imposters. p. 214 Huck writes the letter to Miss Watson so that he will be able to pray: “I took it (the letter) up, and held it 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 I says to myself: ‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’-and tore it up.” p. 163 Huck comments on the king and duke “grieving” over their dead brother: “It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.” P. 231 Huck sees the king and duke tarred and feathered: “Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn’t ever feel any hardness against the many more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”

12. Pretense of society (Society is allegedly civilized and of high morals, yet the opposite is shown to be true.) p. 2 “Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I must try to not do it any more…and she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.” p. 69 The robbers on the Walter Scott are going to let Turner drown on the wrecked steamboat: “He’ll be drowned and won’t have nobody to blame but his own self. I reckon it’s a considerable sight better ‘n killin’ of him. I’m unfavorable to killin’ a man as long as you can git aroun’ it; it ain’t good sense, it ain’t good morals.” p. 75 (Huck’s getting the watchman to save the robbers from the wrecked Walter Scott). “I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead-beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in.” p. 91 The two slave hunters don’t want to help Huck and his sick pap: “Poor devil…we right down sorry for you, but we don’t want the smallpox, you see…Here I’ll put a twenty- dollar gold piece on this board, and you get it when it floats by.” The two slave hunters give Huck $40 to help with his pa who has smallpox but refuse to help in any other way.

13. Pretense of society continued… Ch. 16 The Grangerfords are upperclass, educated Southern aristocrats yet they are involved in a 30 year feud that no one can remember how it started. p. 109 The two families attend church and listen to sermons about brotherly love, but don’t practice it: “Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall.” p. 145 The angry mob goes to get Col. Sherburn: “Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched. In about a minute everybody was saying it; so away they went, mad and yelling, and snatching down every clothesline they come to do the hanging with….there was a racket of ripping and tearing and smashing and down she (the fence) goes.” P. 146-147 Sherburn scolds the mob and states a man is safe in the hands of ten thousand of their kind as long as it’s daytime and they’re not behind him. They are cowards. They believe they are brave but do things at night with masks on behind people’s backs. They come in a mob and borrow their courage from the mass and its leaders, but there is no leader among them which is even more pitiful. p. 152 The men who attend the first night of the royal nonesuch decide not to tell the other men in town they were swindled for fear they will be laughing stocks. They instead talk the show up to others and sell it to the rest of the town.

14. Raft (A symbol of home for Huck and Jim as they do not fit in on land.) p. 94 The raft is destroyed by a steamboat. They are left without a home and separated from each other. p. 112 Jim fixed the raft that they thought had been destroyed p. 116 “We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.” “oh my lordy, lordy! raf’?dey ain no raf’ no mo’,she done broke loose en gore! en here we is” well I catched my breath and mos fainted.” Page 70 “It was the raft and mighty glad was we to get abroad of it again.” pg 72 “By that time everything we had in the world was on our raft,” Pg 62

15. River (Symbolizes freedom particularly from the society that ostracizes them.) p. 116 “I ever felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the middle of the Mississippi.” p. 64 “ It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed-only a little kind of low chuckle. p. 49 “Jim this is nice I says, I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else but here.” p. 64 “We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness.”

16. Lies/cons (A symbol that illustrates lies and cons that are used to dupe a gullible society, like those of the Duke and King, and lies and cons that are necessary and beneficial, like those told by Huck.) p.33 Huck fakes his own death by killing a pig and dragging it down to the river to make it appear someone has killed him and he took a cornmeal sack and dragged it in the opposite direction to make it appear someone robbed Pap’s cabin and they would follow the murderer’s trail and not Huck’s. p. 89 After deciding he would turn Jim in, Huck tells a lie to protect his identity from the 2 slave hunters: “Is your man white or black?” Huck replies, “He’s white.” P. 83-85 Huck goes off into the fog and when he gets back he lies to Jim telling that Huck never left. And that Huck leaving was all a dream p. 121 The duke was in trouble for selling a paste that took the enamel off of one’s teeth. The king was in trouble for running a temperance revival for which he used the money to buy whiskey. p.123 The duke says his great- grandfather is the eldest son of the duke of Bridgewater. P. 22 Huck’s dad told the new judge that he is going to quit drinking and become a new man. P. 57 Huck’s dad ‘cries’ to Judge Thatcher to get some of Huck’s money to ‘hunt down’ Jim. But ends up only drinking and going off with tough looking men

17. Lies/Cons continued… p. 124 The king says he is the eldest son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. P. 126 Huck protects Jim’s identity from the duke and king: “…a steamboat run over the forrard corner of the raft one night, and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel; Jim and me come up all right…” p. 130 The king attends the camp meeting claiming he is a pirate who has been suddenly reformed by their good work. He now wants to return to the Indian Ocean to reform other pirates. They take up a collection of money for him. The duke prints a flyer stating a reward for the runaway slave Jim. That way if anyone stops them they’ll claim they’ve captured him and are going to claim the money.

18. Superstition (A symbol illustrating the intelligence and knowledge both Huck and Jim have that differs from society’s view of intelligence.) p. 3 “Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up….that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away.” p. 4 “Afterward Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the state, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till…they rode him all over the world and tired him most to death…Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying something to it.” p. 15 “I happened to turn over the saltcellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off…There was n inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebody’s tracks…There was a cross in the left boot- heel made with big nails, to keep of the devil.”

19. Superstition continued… p. 16 “Jim had a hair-ball as big as your fist…and he used to do magic with it.” p. 45 “Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at time and lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain…I was going to catch some of them, but Jim wouldn’t let me. He said it was death.” P. 18 Jim tells a fortune with his magical hairball. p.52 Jim won’t let Huck talk about the dead man they found on the boat because it is bad luck and its ghost may haunt them. p. 52 Jim tells Huck that touching a snake skin is bad luck. Jim believes he is bitten by a snake as a result of Huck touching one a few days prior. P. 52 Huck places the dead snake on Jim’s blanket thus attracting its mate. The mate bites Jim. Jim chopped off the snake’s head and threw it away. He then roasted its body and ate a piece of it to cure him. P. 93-94 Jim attributes all of their bad luck (losing the canoe, passing Cairo and the raft being struck by a steamboat) to Huck’s touching a snakeskin.