Huck Finn and Freedom
Huckleberry Finn is one of my favorite American characters.
Maybe I'm just a stereotype, but I feel like Huck Finn is a serious American anti-hero, and for a country that seems to pride itself on being an anti-hero half of the time (the other half of the time it's a pride in the Golden Boy Steve Rogers Kind Of Hero), that's good. And why I think that is, and why I like him so much, is that there is only one thing that Huck Finn cares about. It's not money, or girls, or anything material. Boy's content to sleep in a barrel.
No, the only thing that Huck Finn cares about is freedom.
This is more evident in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn than Tom Sawyer, because Huck straight-up leaves a comfortable life because he can't stand having to 'wear clothes' and 'not swear' and 'go to school' (kid's like, thirteen, fourteen, tops). He greatly prefers living in his barrel or on a raft with an escaped (well, sort of) slave than in this house, and he prefers this because it's freeing, to float down the river in a raft with nothing between you and eternity.
But this can even be seen in his interactions with Tom Sawyer. Huck Finn has no imagination. Huck Finn is about the here and now, and while he goes along with it, he has no time for believing any of Tom's bullshit. His internal thought process whenever he's talking to or hanging out with Tom is, "None of this makes any sense but, like, whatever I guess," and I love that. His indifference to what he's doing is also kind of freeing, because there's nothing he'd rather be doing. Huck Finn is free from societies constraints, and because he doesn't have to wear shoes or go to school, he can do whatever he wants, even if what he's doing doesn't make any sense to him.
The outsider aspect of Huck is one that is mostly seen in Tom Sawyer, when the boys show up at their own funeral and literally nobody cared that he was also gone. He stands there awkwardly, and then when Tom's aunt realizes, "Oh shit, nobody cared that he was gone too" and goes over to him, he's even more awkward about it. He hates it more. In Huckleberry Finn he dresses up like a girl a couple of times (and is apparently pretty enough to pull it off, if his mannerisms weren't so dudely), but there's none of this. There's no focus on any of this.
If Tom Sawyer had given Huck more autonomy (because, as a book about Tom Sawyer, we follow Tom Sawyer, and whenever Tom and Huck are together, Tom is in charge, Huck is just there to be a pariah), he never would have been at that funeral. He probably would've been in his barrel or something. Because he just doesn't care! He doesn't think about that sort of thing! Boy's beautiful.
Maybe I'm just a stereotype, but I feel like Huck Finn is a serious American anti-hero, and for a country that seems to pride itself on being an anti-hero half of the time (the other half of the time it's a pride in the Golden Boy Steve Rogers Kind Of Hero), that's good. And why I think that is, and why I like him so much, is that there is only one thing that Huck Finn cares about. It's not money, or girls, or anything material. Boy's content to sleep in a barrel.
No, the only thing that Huck Finn cares about is freedom.
This is more evident in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn than Tom Sawyer, because Huck straight-up leaves a comfortable life because he can't stand having to 'wear clothes' and 'not swear' and 'go to school' (kid's like, thirteen, fourteen, tops). He greatly prefers living in his barrel or on a raft with an escaped (well, sort of) slave than in this house, and he prefers this because it's freeing, to float down the river in a raft with nothing between you and eternity.
But this can even be seen in his interactions with Tom Sawyer. Huck Finn has no imagination. Huck Finn is about the here and now, and while he goes along with it, he has no time for believing any of Tom's bullshit. His internal thought process whenever he's talking to or hanging out with Tom is, "None of this makes any sense but, like, whatever I guess," and I love that. His indifference to what he's doing is also kind of freeing, because there's nothing he'd rather be doing. Huck Finn is free from societies constraints, and because he doesn't have to wear shoes or go to school, he can do whatever he wants, even if what he's doing doesn't make any sense to him.
The outsider aspect of Huck is one that is mostly seen in Tom Sawyer, when the boys show up at their own funeral and literally nobody cared that he was also gone. He stands there awkwardly, and then when Tom's aunt realizes, "Oh shit, nobody cared that he was gone too" and goes over to him, he's even more awkward about it. He hates it more. In Huckleberry Finn he dresses up like a girl a couple of times (and is apparently pretty enough to pull it off, if his mannerisms weren't so dudely), but there's none of this. There's no focus on any of this.
If Tom Sawyer had given Huck more autonomy (because, as a book about Tom Sawyer, we follow Tom Sawyer, and whenever Tom and Huck are together, Tom is in charge, Huck is just there to be a pariah), he never would have been at that funeral. He probably would've been in his barrel or something. Because he just doesn't care! He doesn't think about that sort of thing! Boy's beautiful.
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