Life, despite all of its intricacies, can make human beings long for the simplest things. There are pleasures in life that seem so simple yet people spend their entire lives searching for these pleasures. Perhaps the greatest pleasure of all is finding out who one really is. The discovery of where a person belongs in the world can bring great joy, but to attain that joy a journey must be completed. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a story about that journey.

For Huck Finn, the journey itself is a quest for freedom and at the same time a search for identity. Huck is seeking to be free from the pious demands of society while at the same time trying to find his place in the world. Huck is attempting a search in life that every human, at one point, will attempt. These searches can only be successful if there is a journey that is successfully completed. Meaning, on that journey there must be growth on an emotional and mental level. One’s perspective of the world around him should change if the journey is rightly carried out.

In order for one to complete a journey, a course must be plotted and a navigator must be existent. The navigator in Huck’s journey is, of course, the river. It is only inevitable that the river be Huck’s guiding light simply because of what the river stands for. The river is that great symbol in Huck’s world, which represents everything pure that Huck is trying to keep intact. The river represents nature; it represents, to Huck, what should be sought after. It has not been molded or conformed by the rigors and restrains of civilization. Rather, it has withstood the test of time and is the ultimate symbol of what Huck is pursuing, which would be freedom and a true identity or knowledge of who Huck is. Therefore, Huck uses the river to complete his quest because he is familiar with the river. He has lived on it all his life and when you’re lost you try to find your way by using things you’re familiar with. Things that you can put some sort of trust in. Huck trusts that the river will help him find his freedom. Why would he use it if he didn’t trust that the river would be useful? Also, it is already known that Huck is a practical boy so he chooses a practical form of escape.

The river is used in the novel to try to get Jim his freedom. The journey down the river not only aids in the liberation of Huck and Jim, it also provides a temporary freedom for them in the sense that on the river Huck and Jim can be free from the rules of society. It is on the river that Huck and Jim feel the happiest. And it is on the river that the practical wants of Huck can be left unblemished or free from being looked down upon by society. The river is also used in this novel because the river, of course, contains water and water is used to represent the unconscious. Water is used to represent the murky depths of the human soul. Water is used to represent the dark confines of loneliness and that is exactly where Huck is. He is lonely. Huck is lost out in the world so it is only logical that Twain makes the river a big part of the novel.

As is the case on all journeys, people are going to be exposed to new things. The Duke and the Dauphin provide an example of what you encounter on a trip down the river and also a look into the foolishness that human being’s possess. Time after time, the Dauphin and the Duke deceive numerous amounts of people with the stupidest schemes. But, despite the degree of stupidity of the schemes, people fall for them. This, of course, is representative of how ignorant human beings can be. All of these events give Huck a look at the nature of humans. He is in the presence of the Duke and the King, persons who consider themselves royalty, the highest rank of civilization that can be attained and the highest place in a society that one can have. Yet, these two are very much willing to deceive their fellow humans in order to satisfy their greedy desires. They are willing to stoop to the level of a petty criminal just to get a few dollars. And this is where Huck is exposed to the truth that all people, even civilized people, are evil. He sees that man’s basic instinct is evil. It is from this experience that Huck realizes a simple fact, “to be civilized is to be false.”

Now this could raise a question because it is obvious to anyone that has read this book that Huck himself is a liar. Why would he care about being false? But one must look at this situation through the eyes of Huck. What Huck sees is people going through a great deal of trouble just to be civilized. He sees people doing all the “right” things to try to get to heaven. But these people who have worked so hard to become civilized are willing to work just as hard at doing the wrong things. Ms. Watson is a prime example of this. Here you have a lady that is constantly preaching the teachings of the Bible, but is a slave owner. Not only is she a slave owner, she is going to sell her slave away from his family just to get a chunk of money. This seems cruel to Huck. But it’s Ms. Watson that’s committing this cruel act. Isn’t she a good, civilized person? She was thought to be one in the eyes of Huck but not so much anymore. Another example of hypocrisy in the novel is the Grangerfords. Here you have a family that is very wealthy and also, on the surface, very much civilized. But as the novel progresses, their hypocrisy and foolishness is seen. They take their guns to church, attempting to be righteous but they’re also looking to kill people. That’s why the guns are there. In the event that a Sheperdson should appear, a member of the Grangerford family is supposed to kill that Sheperdson. All the while, both families are keeping their civilized stature in society. The lasting feud between both families serves as another example of how foolish humans are. The feud is very fierce and has been going on for years yet neither family can remember why it started. It is because of these types of encounters with human nature that Huck starts to question the validity of society.

All of these experiences serve as defining moments in Huck’s character. But the greatest defining moment of all is seen in chapter 41, page 451, where Huck is willing to say “ All right, then, I’ll go to hell.” He is saying this at the point where he makes a decision to go to hell if it means rescuing Jim. This serves as the pinnacle of the change that the journey brought about. It is at this moment in time where Huck makes a decision to go to hell in order to save Jim. He says it himself. He is never going to give any more thought to reforming. This moment in the book is also great in importance because it is at this time that Huck finds out what his basic nature really is. He finds out that his basic nature is wickedness. That’s what he was raised in and that’s what he’s going to be. It’s also what he feels comfortable doing.

Once Huck makes the decision to rescue Jim and to risk his reputation, the growth of Huck is then seen in its most obvious form. The growth has come as a result of the journey that Huck went on. The quest for freedom, in addition to the journey down the river, allows Huck to keep his practical notions on life. Huck has seen all that he needs to see in order for him to make that decision. He was exposed to the romanticism of others, their fanciful views of life, but has found truth and sensibility, realism, in his world. He is now fully decided as to what and who he is and where he’s going. The fact that at the end of the book he lights out for the territories so as not to be civilized is representative of another fact. The fact that, at last, Huck has found direction. He knows where he is going and for what reasons. Huck has also found where he belongs, which is away from the hypocritical nature of “civilized” people.

Someone once said, when speaking of loneliness, that a person may be “all alone in space and time there’s nothing here, but what’s here is mine.” Huck may be alone, but he’s in his element. He’s where he feels he belongs. Perhaps Huck has not been fully educated, perhaps he has not learned proper etiquette, but he has found himself among the vast array of fallacies that had once clouded his world. All of these things came as a result of the growth that Huck experienced, a growth which would have been impossible without a journey.