Huck Finns Real Father Essay, Research Paper

Huck s True Father

In Mark Twain s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn young Huck seems to have two fathers. Pap, his biological father, and Jim, the runaway slave who befriends Huck and acts the way a real father should.

Pap (Hulk s biological father) is an alcoholic who treats Huck very poorly. He beats Huck whenever he is hitting the bottle and only returned to Huck s life when he found out Huck was left a large sum of money.

Jim was only in Huck s life to help him and that s is why he was a true father to Huck.

Early in the story Pap kidnaps Huck and locks him in the house for several days . As a result of this monstrosity Huck decides to escape and fakes his death( Twain-33). He floats down the Mississippi on a canoe he found. He stops at Jackson s Island, a small island in the middle of the river. It is there where he meets up with Jim who had just runaway from his master. To cook their food and do other things they built a fire and decided to keep it burning all night. To keep it burning they decided to take turns watching it as the other person slept. One night Jim stayed up all night watching the fire and keeping a look out. When questioned about his actions he tells Huck that he felt bad waking him because he looked so peaceful. To me that is something only a true father would do.

Another reason why Jim was more of a true father to Huck was through his actions. Pap would teach Huck the morals of southern society. One of these morals was racism. Although Huck knew in his heart that this was wrong he believed in it because of the way of society. Jim attempted to instill in Huck good, righteous beliefs. That is another way in which Jim was a true father.

In conclusion, Jim was more of a true father to Huck then Pap for several reasons. These reasons were: (1)instilling beliefs that are right, (2)

The way he treated Huck and (3)the things that he did for Huck with no

personal benefit. Those are all the reasons why Jim was Huck’s true

father in Twain s novel.