Huckleberry Fin Essay, Research Paper

Mark Twain’s Imagination

In the 1885 classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, two boys distinctly separate imagination from reality. Mark Twain has Huck Finn represent reality while his best friend, Tom Sawyer, represents imagination. In a Mississippi River community Twain makes sure that Tom and Huck differ so the strict separation of imagination and reality is identified. Huck Finn takes ideas and theories of his own and imagines what Tom would do before he acts. Tom’s ideas and aspirations prove he has quite an imagination. During pre-Civil War time Twain has Huck, Tom and Jim, a run away slave, go on a pilgrimage together. For Jim it is a pilgrimage to freedom. Tom goes from imagination to reality while Huck escapes a horrible past. Twain also uses the three to show that attitude is more important than aptitude. He proves this through out the chapters of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Huckleberry Finn represents reality because in everybody’s life there is a colossal struggle for independence and loyalty. In his life he struggles to become a freer person. He does this by leaving Widow Douglas, Miss Watson and his drunk father. Huck realizes that if he wants to see the world he must escape the scrutiny of his father and the women he lived with. When he meets Jim on the island they begin a close-knit relationship and begin to become loyal to each other. This loyal bond is shown when Huck thinks “…and do everything he [Jim] could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got right now…”. The loyalty shown between Huck and Jim is the loyalty found after a battle to correct the morals and ethics one is raised upon.. If everybody goes through a gigantic struggle Jim and Huck did, everyone would have a real outlook on life.

After the escapades Huck and his friends go through they have a new outlook on life. Huck’s adventures teach him the life lesson of reality. This lesson will also him forever.

Tom, Jim and Huck might be uneducated but they are all accomplished in life’s lessons. They prove to themselves that though they not be able to read, they still can succeed in life. The common sense an quick thinking Huck shows when he tells two boatmen ” ‘ Good-by, sir,’…’ I won’t let no runaway ni**ers get by me if I can help it.” saves Jim from certain capture. The common sense is something that only occurs when a person has a sense of reality. A person with an imagination would conjure up eccentric ideas and eventually get caught. The fact of the matter is that Huck Finn is more accomplished than some will ever be. Huck had to escape a drunk father, two devout Christian women and countless foes on the river. All these obstacles give him a sense of reality unparalleled to any other. Anybody who has had a hard life is more familiar with the facts of life and face reality better because of that. This is how Huckleberry Fin represents reality.

Tom Sawyer is the type of person who’s imagination can get away from him. His imagination is represented when he creates a band of robbers called ” Tom Sawyer’s Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.” Tom Sawyers’s Gang represents Tom’s imagination because “WE hadn’t robbed nobody, hadn’t killed any people, but only just pretended.” This separates him from Huck because Huck has had many more life experiences that were noteworthy. Huck joins the gang in an attempt to take back his childhood imagination. At some time or another, everyone wants part of their childhood back. The sense of reality has taken over their life and one has lost their imagination. This is how Tom and Huck symbolize opposite ends of the stick. Huck wants the childish imagination that Tom still has. In a way Tom Sawyer is Huck Finn’s role model. This is because sometimes before Huck acts he often thinks of what Tom Sawyer might do.

Attitude is more important the aptitude as Huck Finn proves. Being educated in a pre-Civil War Mississippi River community is tough to accomplish. Being sensibly educated in life’s lesson of reality is something come upon by only a few country dwellers. Mark Twain said ” Education is not taught by the books.” This is true because of the adventures he has Huck, Tom and Jim take. On their journey the trio learns many valuable lessons in life. Only if every one could learn these lessons there would be much more understanding between people and the consequences reality causes them to suffer. In conclusion, Tom and Huck represent imagination and reality not by who they are, but by how they differ.