In+The+Book

= = =Huck's Journey:=

Huck's Journey in the book is extreme satire of people’s hopes and search for a better life. As Huck travels further and further away from the civilization he knows he actually gets nowhere at all. He leaves to escape a society that wants to civilize him, but all he finds as he travels down the river are more and more people who wish to do the same thing.

"The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied." (pg 2) Pay particular attention to the word "lit", because twain uses this word to tie together the end and the beginning of the novel. Early in the novel Twain lets us know that the prime reason for Huck to run away from the Widow Douglass, is that he cannot stand to be civilized. He decides to run off down the river to find a better life, but instead all he finds is more hardship.

The true irony of Huck's journey for freedom is revealed in some of the last pages of the novel. "But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before." (pg 388) This is almost exactly the same circumstance that the book began in. Once again someone has taken upon themselves to attempt to "civilize" Huck, and once again, Huck has decided that he must journey for a better life with more freedom.

We can only assume that Huck's journeys will never end, because he looks for an ideal sense of freedom that will never exist. Every time he reaches a place that requires him to compromise ever so slightly, he turns and runs.

Huck is a perfect picture of the settlers that journeyed west for better lives. They, like him, were unhappy for whatever reason in the lives that they lived, and believed that out west there were bigger and better things. However, more-often-than-not, these settlers didn't ever reach the happy endings the envisioned.

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