A Father Does Not Always Know Best
Uploaded by yrbkgal on Jun 03, 2001
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain brilliantly illustrates a boy's travels down the Mississippi and the trials and tribulations that occur as a result. Having a runaway slave as a companion and being set in the South during slavery only forebodes trouble. The many characters and stunts that Huck's pulls provides for an interesting depiction of a young man's venture down a river. Huck lives in a small town and has only one drunken parent, which supplies Huck with many problems. His biological father, Pap, wanders from town to town, begging for money and drinking; and every once in a while pops back into Huck's life to beg money and to scold his son for going to school and becoming ‘sivilized’. However, there is also another male figure that acts as a father to young Huck. Miss Watson's slave Jim travels along with Huck and befriends the boy. Because Jim is a role model and mentor to the young Huck, he is more of a father figure than his biological father.
Jim also teaches him principles directly through their conversations and debates. "Jim said he reckoned that the widow was partly right and that Pap was partly right, so the best way would be or us to pick two or three things from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them anymore” (Twain, 49). Jim taught Huck how to combine what he had been taught so far and how to rationalize. He also taught Huck little fables and old wives tales such as the 'bad luck if ya touch a rattlesnake' and 'a hairy breast mean ya gonna be rich sumday...(Twain, 40, 34) "Jim says you mustn't catch a bird cause it's death and you mustn’t count the thing you're ganna cook for dinner cause it's bad luck" (Twain, 34) Jim teaches him both lessons that are essential to life and ones that are amusing and make life interesting. Fathers satisfy the needs of their sons. Jim satisfied Huck’s need for exploration and his quest for knowledge and also satisfied his need for pleasure and enjoyment.
A father teaches his son lessons. Jim taught Huck many lessons both unintentionally and directly. Jim shows Huck that slaves are human people. Huck learns that slaves are capable of human emotions such as love and compassion because Jim talked of buying his wife out of slavery and stealing his children out of bondage....