Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is set along the Mississippi where two characters, Huck and Jim, journey down the Mississippi in fight for freedom. The novel begins with Huckleberry describing his life. He was adopted by Widow Douglas and presently lives with her. He goes to school and is living a great life.

One day, Huck’s father returns to town after hearing that Huck has seven thousand dollars. Huck’s father takes away Huck from Widow Douglas and they both Huck and his father live in a small shack. While living with his father, Huck is both physically and verbally abused.

Huck is fed up with his father and runs away. He fakes his death and flees to Jackson’s island. A couple days later he finds Miss Watson slave Jim on the island. He is also running away in search of freedom. Huck goes to town in disguise and is told that they are searching for both Jim and himself. Huck and Jim decide to flee down the Mississippi on a large raft. They float downstream at night and hide during the day.

Huck and Jim become very good friends on their journey down the Mississippi. They want to flee to Cairo and reach the free states. But unfortunately one night, Huck and Jim are separated in fog and miss Cairo. They find each other the next day.

A few nights later, their raft crashes into a steamship. Huck swims t o shore and ends up at the Grangerfords. Huck lives there for a while and is treated very nicely. One day he is told about a family feud and witnesses a shooting that involved one of the Grangerford’s. He leaves the residences immediately and reunites with Jim.

They start downstream once again where they find the Duke and King. Huck begins to realize that the King and Duke aren’t who they say they are and sees that they are scamming people. The King and Duke hear about a large inheritance. The King and Duke pretend to be British uncles and the town believes it. They receive the gold. Huck cannot be a part of it any more and tells one of the daughters it’s a scam. He steals the gold form the King and duke and hides it in the coffin of Peter Wilkes. He tells Mary Jane the whole story and runs away. He meets with Jim once again and they continue their adventure.

Huck and Jim unfortunately meet up with the King and Duke right as they are about to escape from them. The King and Duke become angry after figuring that Huck and Jim were trying to escape and they sell Jim. Huck goes to where Jim has been sold and is mistaken for Tom Sawyer. When Tom sawyer actually arrives, Huck tells him the whole story. Tom agrees to help Huck and pretends to be a brother of Huck’s.

Tom and Huck make a plan to free Jim. They free Jim and run away. As they were running away, Tom Sawyer was shot. Huck returned to town in search of help. He finds a doctor but also sees Tom’s uncle. He is forced to come back home. A day passé sand there is no sign of Tom until the doctor arrives back to their house Tom and Jim. The doctor tells them that Jim saved Tom’s life.

Huck confesses everything and they tell Aunt Polly it was him who tried freeing Jim. Huck, Tom and Jim learn that Jim is actually a free man. Aunt Polly offers to adopt Huck but Huck refuses. He rather live a life full of adventure.

About the Author

Mark Twain (1830-1910)

Mark Twain is one of the greatest American authors ever to live. He was born on November 30, 1835 in small town known as Florida, Missouri. Twain grew up in Florida until the age of four where his family moved to Hannibal.

Twain was a mischievous boy. He grew up in a town with only two thousand people. He began smoking at he age of nine. At age twelve, his father died and eh stopped going to school. Twain began working for the local newspaper with his older brother Orion. He became a sub-editor for the paper and wrote tall tales, jokes, and satirical pranks.

In 1853, Twain left Hannibal to take a job in St. Louis. He became a journalist but constantly traveled back and forth between New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Iowa. After a while as journalist, Twain stopped and became a licensed river pilot at the age of 24. In 1861, Twain piloting days came to an end with the start of the Civil War.

Twain was signed up to be a confederate soldier but later deserted the military and moved west. Twain wanted to travel around to find gold and silver. He was unsuccessful at that and began writing once again. In 1869, Twain’s first novel was published entitled Innocents Abroad.

That same year, Twain met Olivia Langdon who he later married. They also had their first child named Langdon. A publishing company asked Twain to write another novel after seeing the success of the first.

Twain wrote Roughing It. The novel did not do so well and Twain son Langdon died from Diphtheria. Twain and his family later traveled to Europe where Twain’s writing career turned around when he came out with the novel The Gilded Age. Twain later wrote a many more novels and became very successful. Twain later died on April 21, 1910. He was considered to be one the greatest writers of all time.