Huck Finn: My Ultimate Adventure Story

            Coming into this course, I was really excited to delve into The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. After reading the book in high school, it immediately became one of my favorite novels. This next statement is going to sound pretty weird, so I will elaborate on it: I love Huck Finn because I can relate to it. No, I didn’t get locked in a cabin with a drunken father, only to fake my own murder and escape, then float down the Mississippi river alongside a runaway slave with a shortened version of my name, only to have him become the father figure I never actually had. But, I did have some awesome childhood adventures that the story reminds me of.

            My dad is the second oldest of seven children and my mom the second youngest of five. Big family. Of that big family, about 75% of us live within an 8 mile radius of my house. So, it’s a big family within a close proximity. Two of my cousins, John, who is a year older than me, and Josh, a year younger than me, lived about a 5 minute bike ride from my house. They also lived adjacent to a golf course and an elaborate forest with a substantial creek running through it. For adolescents, this living situation only meant one thing: constant exploring and adventuring.

            Huck tells a short story about his adventures with Tom Sawyer’s Gang. While we never thought of killing people, my cousins and I had a gang of our own. We would ride our bikes around the forest, mapping things out, hiding objects, constructing up rope swings, among other things. When I was about twelve, my aunt forced my cousins to become vegans, so our main course of action was eating foods deemed illegal by my aunt. Pretty rebellious, huh? I mean, talking about killing people and eating forbidden food are basically the same, right?

            Anyways, the connection between Huck and myself is basically unrelated until Huck runs into the Grangerfords. But, I’ll get to that later. I want to talk about the moral development of Huck in comparison to that of his society. It almost makes me jealous of Huck. In his society, keeping slaves in their place was of top priority. But, as we see with Huck’s gang, Huckleberry is more focused on keeping friendships and bolstering his self worth than turning in Jim. So, when Jim asks Huck to promise never to turn him in, Huck is immediately obliged to hold to that promise no matter what. I sort of wish that I could have that commitment to God and to my friends. I have committed my life to following Christ and living for Him, but so often, I have trouble going against societal norms that are trending away from religion. Along the way, Huck and Jim could do nothing to avoid their growing together. They become more of family than just pals, and it is such a different dynamic from the world around them.

            Back to the Grangerfords, the fights that my cousins and I had were with paintball guns. My cousins’ neighbors weren’t our favorite people in the world. So, we did what any clashing groups of teenagers would do: have paintball wars back in the woods. The funny part was when an innocent party just passing through would get shot…oops.

            This whole Huck’s life to my life connection got me thinking about the genius of Mark Twain: Huck Finn actually seems like a real kid. Think of all the times when you went exploring when you were younger. As kids, we see the world as a fresh new place, and want to learn about everything. Huck is just another kid looking for another adventure. And it’s so entertaining to read about how I felt when I was younger.

            Overall, I loved reading Huck Finn again. I think that it is one of the greatest adventure stories ever written, and wherever this book is banned is missing out on a great story about our society.