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STUDYWORLD STUDYNOTES

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Summary:

Just as the boys are ready to put their plan into effect, a group of angry townspeople with guns, enter the shed. In the confusion, Tom, Huck, and Jim escape through the hole. Tom accidentally makes some noise as they go over the fence and is shot in the leg. They make it to the raft and intend to head downstream. Their joy over their success is dampened when Jim insists that Tom must have a doctor look at his wound. He refuses to leave even though he knows that he is risking his own life by staying.

On the way to the doctor, Huck is found by Silas and taken home. The next morning, Huck sees that Jim has been recaptured and Tom is back also. After the doctor takes care of Tom, the boys tell everyone what they had done and that they were the ones that had freed Jim. In addition, Tom also announces to everyone that Jim is actually a free man, having been freed by Miss Watson before she died. During all this, Aunt Polly arrives and the masquerade of Tom being Sid is also revealed.

After everything is cleared up, Huck still decides to leave and seek his "freedom" by living in Indian territory.

Review:

The final chapters reveal that Tom knew that Jim had been a free man all along and that the escape plan was simply for the sake of adventure. They also reveal that Huck's father is dead and that the corpse that Huck and Jim had seen earlier in the story, had been he.

Huck's decision to head off into new territory reemphasizes his dislike of the civilized society.

Twain tells the story through Huck Finn and his diction is very informal and typical of the southern speech of a young boy during that time. This makes the diction simple and easy to understand with humorous differences between this writing style and other more formal ones. Much of the descriptions and imagery is humorous in this way. Twain also pays close attention to the diction of the speech of the various people from the various areas down the river.

The writing style in this book is not flowery or poetic, but simply the speech of a young boy.