Huck Finn - Theme

There are many themes that run through Huck Finn, but my favorite is one that we learned about earlier in the year while reading Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thereou. The theme that runs throughout both works of literature is that the majority is not always right. In Civil Disobedience, the majority was the government, in Huck Finn, its the white man in the American Society. We see this majority rule as Huck struggles to free Jim, a slave that would otherwise be sold.

Huck learns at a very young age that black men are not to be treated equal, and because the majority believes this, so does Huck. He also is brainwashed into believing that if he doesn't follow the rules of the majority he will go to Hell. We know this because towards the end he makes a famous statement that he is "willing to go to Hell" if it means freedom for Jim.

We see the majority rule in other ways besides just blacks vs. whites in this book. When the King and the Duke are posing as the brothers of the deceased man and he has convinced everyone to believe them. Finally, when only one man stands up against him and tries to show that they are frauds, nobody will believe him.

Another instance is the Sherburn/Boggs episode. It starts out with Sherburn killing Boggs, a man that has threatened Sherburn many times. After he does so, one man rallies up enough people to go after Sherburn that soon everyone joins because they think if this large group thinks Sherburn should be hung, then they must be right. I like this instance the best, because Sherburn points out that without Buck Harkness the group would have never even pressed charges. Once again, the power of numbers attracts people into believing that if so many people believe in this idea, it must be correct.

All in all, I think this theme can teach us a couple of life lessons. Obviously, not to always follow the crowd, and also to not be afraid to have your own thoughts, ideas, and feelings. It's easy to follow the crowd because there is so much power in numbers. But as Huck learned in the end, when he goes against his beliefs of slavery, the crowd isn't always right.

Huck Finn - Summary 39-40

At the beginning of chapter 39 Huck and Tom are writing a fake letter to Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas to make them think there are indians coming to take Jim. They sign the letter anonymous and slip it under the front door. They also paint pictures of skulls and crossbones and other horrific objects on the doors. These scare Aunt Sally greatly, but the boys still continue on with their plan. They say the reason for writing the letter is so that there is some level of difficulty in getting Jim out.

Next, they go and collect the gardener snakes they are going to give Jim as a pet. They gather a bunch and tie them up in a sack and place them under one of the beds until they can get them to Jim. In the mean time, all the snakes escape because they didn't tie the bag well enough. This was kind of a humorous part, because Aunt Sally absolutely hated the snakes and didn't act normal until a week after they were collected again. They also gathered an assortment of spiders and other insects and even quite a few rats. The next night they took them to Jim and let them all go free inside his room. Jim did not really like them at all, he said he could never sleep because there was so much activity in his bed now with all these things, and they never all slept at once. He also said that the spiders didn't like him, they would always stay far away.

Finally, the night of Jim's breakout was here. Huck had to go down to the cellar to get some butter he had forgot(I'm not exactly sure what the butter was for) and Aunt Sally came down and caught him. Just before she saw him though, he slipped the butter up under his hat. As he walked upstairs with her he saw the entire upstairs was filled with men holding shotguns. He knew they were there waiting for the indians to come. He tried to lie out of why he was in the cellar but he started to get so nervous and hot that the butter started melting and running down his neck and his face. Aunt Sally thought that he had some sort of illness and his brains were leaking out. Finally, Huck told her, and he wasn't mad.

When Aunt Sally released Huck back to bed, after the butter incident, Huck went to find Tom and tell him that their plan had made a serious turn for the worse, but the men had already decided to come and wait in Jim's cabin for the indians. Huck and Tom got into the dark cabin just before the men, and because it was so dark they were able to sneak out under the bed and through the hole they had dug with Jim in tail. When they were safely out of the cabin, Tom's shirt caught on a post and made a large breaking sound as he kept running. This tipped off all of the men that were waiting outside, but because they were so dark they didn't exactly know where they were. Jim, Huck, and Tom all started running along the river towards their raft as shots were being fired at them. The men then let the dogs loose, but when the dogs caught up to them, it was their dogs, so they didn't bother them and kept on going. Jim, Huck, and Tom got onto their raft and floated quietly down the river. Before long, the rest of the men were so far up the river, they could barely hear them.

At the end of the chapter, we find out that Tom had actually been shot in the leg. Tom doesn't want a doctor, but Jim and Huck insist. So they make a plan to get the doctor at the next town, and Jim will once again hide while the doctor tends to Tom.