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Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Boekverslag 8 April 1998, gemaakt door Walter ter Maten, Son en Breugel.

Author:	Mark Twain.
Title:	The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1883).
Publisher:	The Hay Classics, Hay Editions Limited, 1994.
Pages:	270.

Main works:

The celebrated jumping, 1865.
The innocents abroad, 1869.
The adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876.
Life on the Mississippi, 1883.
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1885.

Location:

The tour starts at St. Petersburg, somewhere along the Mississippi River, where it is the border river between the states of Missouri (west side, hilly) and Illinois (east side, flat, woods). It is a poor little shabby village where Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn live. St. Petersburg is located on the Missouri side of the river. In the book, it becomes clear that St. Petersburg is north of St. Louis. It takes Huck and the nigger Jim 5 nights of 7-8 hours on a raft at a speed of 5 miles per hour to reach St. Louis, a city of 20-30,000 people. Their 1100 miles long tour on the raft ends somewhere in Arkansas (the State of Arkansaw).

A sequel:

The book may be viewed as a sequel to the earlier 'Adventures of Tom Sawyer'. However, it is a much better book, because it combines adventures with a great tour on a raft on the Mississippi. For Tom Sawyer there is a (minor) role at the start and at the end of the episode in inventing difficult adventures, but the raft tour is the adventure of Huckleberry and of the runaway nigger, Jim. It also shows the simple and sometimes brute life along the river.

The naive people:

On their tour, Huckleberry and Jim meet several people: naive ones, illiterates, and clever ones. The illiterates are impressed when they are visited by clever people, who have some more education and who can speak very good stories, and who know something about history, geography and of the Bible. The simple minded ones are not able to distinguish what is right and what is wrong. This is a frontier country where the illiterates have the illusion that they can make themselves a living. In practise they are a constant victim for the clever ones. Here you find the preachers, who create sessions with large declamations and many 'Amen'-s. The main purpose, however, is to collect money. Emotions play a large role. Make people cry, show also some tears of your own and they believe you. The 'Duke' and the 'King', two swindlers, who combine their activities, are real artists in these roles. They also impress Huck and Jim and even take over control over the raft and decide where they shall land.
The Duke and the King also try to steal an heritage from three single sisters by pretending that they are the two brothers of the sisters' late rich uncle. The two are very good in to become being trusted by the sisters and the local friends of the died man. It is a dirty role, but a great one.

Life:

Life along the Mississippi can be very simple. Most people are poor and have very few clothes. The man drink a lot. The villages are poor. There is a lot of mud. People like to go to a theatre, but they shout easily when they don't like it. They easily quarrel, fight and shoot at each other. A popular punishment is by using tar and feathers and to carry the victims through the village. People, and especially the Negroes, believe in ghosts and witches.
Near Cairo, the raft is struck by an up-stream river boat. For a small period, Huck and Jim are separated. Here Huck meets the rich family of the Grangerfords who has a feud with the Stepherdsons family. In a big fight several people, of all ages, die at both sides. Of course there is also a romantic contact between two of both families. The problems and style of living of these families are in contrast to those of the ordinary people in the Mississippi area.

Responsibility:

Huckleberry sometimes has problems with responsibility:

In Cairo, where the Ohio river enters the Mississippi, Jim speaks about freedom. Old Miss Watson, the sister of the widow Douglas in St. Petersburg (who has taken care of Huck), was the former master of Jim. At a visit, nigger sellers indicated her an impressive price for Jim if he was sold near New Orleans. Jim had heard this, and has run away. Huck likes Jim very much, but he also doesn't want to hurt Miss Watson, who would loose her property when Jim becomes free. For Huck it is new to see that niggers have feelings too, that they long for their family.
At the funeral, Huck hesitates quite long to inform the sisters about the intentions of the Duke and the King. He is not sure about the reprisals taken at him by these two.
Finally, Jim has been sold by the two swindlers. Luckily, the Phelps family has bought him. Mrs Phelps is Aunt Sally, sister of Aunt Polly, and thus also aunt of Tom Sawyer. She expects Tom to visit her. Because Huck enters the farm before Tom, he plays being Tom. After his arrival, Tom plays Sid, his younger brother. To free Jim should not be a great problem, but Tom persuades Huck and Jim that it must be done in some impressive way. Huck is not able to argue against this. Hence, Jim stays in the cabin as prisoner for several weeks, only because of the game of Tom. In the end, it becomes clear that Toms adventure was completely unnecessary, because he had already known of the fact that Miss Watson, who had died shortly, has set Jim free in her will.

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