CliffsNotes on Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Cliff Notes

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• ISBN:
  9780544182103
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

Chapter 1

Summary

The novel begins with Huck Finn introducing himself and referencing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. “You don’t know about me,” Huck narrates, “without you have read a book by the name of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but that ain’t no matter.” He tells readers that, for the most part, Twain told the truth in Tom Sawyer but that everyone tells some lies, even people like Aunt Polly and the Widow Douglas.

Huck gives a brief summary of how he and Tom got six thousand dollars each at the end of Tom Sawyer. Judge Thatcher has taken Huck’s money and invested it with a dollar of interest coming in each day, and Huck now lives with the Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson. The sisters are, as Huck puts it, trying to “sivilize” him, and his frustration at living in a clean house and minding his manners starts to grow. Miss Watson tells Huck he will go to “the bad place” if he does not behave, and Huck thinks that will be okay as long as Miss Watson is not there.

During the evening, Huck accidentally kills a spider that was on his shoulder and worries that bad luck will follow. When the town clock strikes twelve midnight, Huck hears a noise outside his window and climbs out to find Tom Sawyer waiting for him.

 

Commentary

The opening sentence of the novel notifies readers that Huck Finn is the narrator and will tell his story in his own words, in his own language and dialect (complete with grammatical errors and misspellings), and from his own point of view. By using the first person narrative point of view, Twain carries on the southwestern humor tradition of vernacular language; that is, Huck sounds as a young, uneducated boy from Missouri should sound.

This first sentence also alludes to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The allusion reminds the reader of a novel about boys and their adventures, the purpose of which, according to Twain, was to rekindle in adults memories “of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.” Then Huck—and Twain—dismiss the work with “But that ain’t no matter.” Although the boyish type adventure episodes tend to reappear as a plot motif in Huck Finn, especially in the sections including Tom, their primary purpose is more to communicate criticism of Twain’s contemporary society than to evoke fond memories. This statement also makes clear that it does not matter whether readers have read Twain’s earlier book or not. Huck Finn is Huck’s story, and he will tell it from his natural, unsophisticated perspective.

 

  This first chapter introduces several major literary elements. Humor is used in various ways in the novel, but Huck’s deadpan narration and pragmatic personality juxtaposed to events and beliefs that make no logical or practical sense to him provide much of the novel’s humor. Because Huck is young and uncivilized, he describes events and people in a direct manner without any extensive commentary. Huck does not laugh at humorous situations and statements simply because his literal approach does not find them to be funny; he fails to see the irony. He does not project social, religious, cultural, or conceptual nuances into situations because he has never learned them. For example, when Miss Watson tells Huck that “she was going to live so as to go to the good place [heaven],” Huck, applying what he knows about Miss Watson and the obvious lifestyle that makes her happy, responds that he “couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going,” and makes up his mind to not try to get there. Huck does not intend his comment to be disrespectful or sarcastic; it is simply a statement of fact and is indicative of the literal, practical approach to life that he exhibits throughout the novel.

 

  The first chapter also serves to introduce an important thematic image that pervades the work: natural, free individualism contrasted with the expectations of society. Huck feels confined by the social expectations of civilization and wants to return to his simple, carefree life. He dislikes the social and cultural trappings of clean clothes, Bible studies, spelling lessons, and manners that he is forced to follow. Huck cannot understand why people would want to live under such circumstances, and he longs to be able to return to his previous life where no one tries to “sivilize” him.

The contrast between freedom and civilization permeates the novel, and Huck’s struggle for natural freedom (freedom from society) mirrors the more important struggle of Jim, who struggles for social freedom (freedom within the society). Both Huck and Jim search for freedom during their adventure down the Mississippi, and both find that civilization presents a large obstacle to obtaining their dream. From the beginning, readers realize that civilization is filled with certain hypocrisies, including religion and the practice of slavery.

Huck’s candid narration gives Twain the opportunity to make barbed comments about literary and social institutions of the nineteenth century. The barbed comments range from his literary aversion to the novels of authors such as James Fenimore Cooper (Last of the Mohicans) to overt religious hypocrisies such as the Christian acceptance of slavery in his boyhood town.

 

  The historical realities of slavery and racial division are, without doubt, the most important and most controversial elements in Huck Finn. Imbedded in the contrast between freedom and civilization is the issue of slavery, and the inclusion of the pejorative slang term “niggars” in the first chapter prepares readers for the similar coarse language that will follow. In order to depict the region and the attitude in a realistic manner, Twain makes a conscious choice not to edit regional bigotry and the language that accompanies it.

The reader should remain aware of two major points while reading this novel: First, the novel is a satire; that is, irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit are used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity. Second, the novel is first person narrative (told from Huck’s point of view). Confusing either of these issues can lead the unsophisticated reader to drastic misinterpretations. The feelings and interpretations of situations, issues, and events advanced by Huck are not necessarily those the author is advocating.

By the end of this first chapter, the reader has gathered a good deal of data about Huck: his mother is dead, his father is the town drunk, he has “a dollar a day... all the year round” income, he lacks “book learning,” hates the “sivilized” ways, is keenly observant of details around him, and is a realist.

 

Glossary

 

sugar-hogshead   a large barrel used to store sugar.

niggers   niggar, originally a dialectal variant of Negro, the term is a derogatory and vulgar racial slur directed primarily toward African Americans.

Chapter 2

Summary

As Huck and Tom sneak off from the Widow Douglas’ house, Huck trips, and the noise alerts Miss Watson’s slave, Jim. Jim tries to find what made the noise and almost discovers the boys, but after a while he falls asleep. While Jim is sleeping, Tom takes Jim’s hat and hangs it on a tree-limb. Afterwards, Jim tells everyone that witches put a spell on him and took him all over the state. Jim’s story grows with each telling until finally slaves come from all over to hear Jim’s tale of being bewitched. After this episode, he is considered an authority on witches.

Huck and Tom meet the rest of the town boys, and they all go to a hidden cave two miles down the river. In the cave, Tom declares that the band of robbers will be called “Tom Sawyer’s Gang” and “Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.” The boys all swear that, if a gang member tells the gang’s secrets, they will cut his throat and then kill that boy’s family. One of the boys says the oath is not fair because Huck Finn does not have a family unless you count a father who can never be found. A solution is found when Huck offers Miss Watson as his family and says, “they could kill her.”

Using pirate books as a reference, Tom describes the future business of the gang as robbery and murder. The other boys wonder why everything must be so complicated and involve ransoms and guards, and Tom replies that he’s “seen it in books; and so of course that’s what we’ve got to do.”

Commentary

Chapter 2 introduces Jim, Huck’s future companion and friend. In Missouri, most slaves were domestic servants, not workers on plantations that most people today identify with slavery. Jim’s initial behaviors as interpreted through Huck are stereotypical traits attributed to blacks at the time: laziness, a tendency toward exaggeration, and conceit. Jim’s belief in superstition mirrors that of Huck, and his explanations of what had happened to him that night could be interpreted to reveal either a gullible nature or an opportunist who makes the most of the circumstances that he encounters. Twain not only taps Huck’s prejudices in the early portrayal of Jim, but he also taps the prejudices of the reader. Jim gains handsomely from his witch adventure and wisely uses the fictional kidnapping to boost his stature among his peers. Nevertheless, the suggestion that Jim displays negative traits has been partially responsible for the opposition to teaching Huck Finn in the classroom.

The character of Jim, however, is much more complex than the sleepy man who has seen the devil and been kidnapped by witches. Moreover, this simplistic interpretation of Jim in the beginning of the novel enhances the prejudicial nature of the stereotype when the true depth of his character is revealed later in the novel. As readers learn about Huck, they also learn about Jim and the admirable character he is.

Also introduced in Chapter 2 is the character of Tom Sawyer. Tom is a contrasting character (a foil) to Huck, despite their obvious bond and friendship. Tom is a romantic, insensitive representative of the society Huck dislikes. His tendency is to take control, romanticize, and exaggerate all situations. Tom bases his expertise in adventures on the many pirate and robber books he has read. His humorous exaggerations symbolize Twain’s dislike of popular and glorified romantic novels. Later, in Chapter 3, Tom mentions Don Quixote as a model of the romantic novels. Ironically, Cervantes was satirizing romantic adventure stories in this work much the same as Twain does in this work. Obviously, Tom was unaware of the satiric nature of the novel, but Twain was not.

Unlike the playful humor of Tom Sawyer, the humor of Huck Finn is bitter satire using the hypocrisy, violence, and squalor in the society that Twain observed. For example, when Tom decides that the gang will rob and murder people “except some that you bring to the cave here and keep them till they’re ransomed,” the boys discover that no one, including Tom, knows the meaning of “ransom.” The boys assign a meaning to the word by conjecturing what it means (“keep them until they are dead”). This meaning, of cours...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• How to Use This Book
• LIFE AND BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR
• Personal Background
• Early Career
• Writing Career
• Later Years
• His Body of Work
• INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVEL
• Introduction
• A Brief Synopsis
• List of Characters
• Character Map
• Huck Finn Geography
• CRITICAL COMMENTARIES
• Notice; Explanatory
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapters 5 and 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapters 9 and 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapters 12 and 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapters 15 and 16
• Chapters 17 and 18
• Chapters 19 and 20
• Chapters 21, 22, and 23
• Chapter 24
• Chapters 25 and 26
• Chapters 27 and 28
• Chapters 29 and 30
• Chapter 31
• Chapters 32 and 33
• Chapters 34 and 35
• Chapters 36, 37, and 38
• Chapters 39 and 40
• Chapters 41 and 42
• Chapter The Last
• CHARACTER ANALYSES
• Huckleberry Finn
• Jim
• Tom Sawyer
• CRITICAL ESSAYS
• Theme—Freedom versus Civilization
• Characterization—Pap versus Jim
• CLIFFSNOTES REVIEW
• Q&A
• Identify the Quote
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
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