he Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huck Finn is the sidekick character in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, his life is an adventure and he never has to go to school, however at the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, he agrees to live a better life and goes on to live with the Widow Douglas. Huck, who narrates the book, is about 14 years old and he definitely doesn't approve of his guardian's methods of how one should live in a civilised community. He doesn't understand the concept of clean clothes, reading from the bible, table manners, all of these are confusing to him and on top of all he feels lonely, that is why he often sneaks out with Tom in search of "adventures" and fun things to do. However, all of these come to an end when his drunk and degenerate father kidnaps him and forces him to live in a shack, sometimes even locks him there for several days. After his father beats him and nearly kills Huck, the boy fakes his death and leaves his abusive father.

The novel by Mark Twain is about a young boy who was raised in the Deep South before slavery was abolished, a place where the fabric of daily life was prejudiced bigotry and nevertheless racism. The novel is an account of how, through his friendship with the fugitive slave Jim, Huck Finn, who is a product of these times, transcended the morality and values of those times. Furthermore, it is a novel about America's past and its origins, a past that still haunts the American conscience.

In his 1950 introduction to Huckleberry Finn, T.S. Eliot gives a compelling description for Mark Twain's reversion "to the mood of Tom Sawyer" in the novel's final chapters. Furthermore, he explains that neither a tragic nor happy ending would be appropriate because:

Huck Finn must come from nowhere and be bound for nowhere. His is not the independence of the typical or symbolic American Pioneer, but the independence of the vagabond?He is as much an affront to the "pioneer spirit" as he is to "business enterprise"; he is a state of nature as detached as the state of the saint. In a busy world, he represents the loafer?" (Hsuan, 2009:687) T.S. Eliot believes that Huck is a protomodernist, a wandering "vagabond" shorn of his history and traditions, belonging to no particular place or family, living in an era that has no beginning and no end. Like other of Twain's characters, Huck embodies a "negative freedom from a culture oriented toward business gain, pioneer settler colonialism, and territorial bound labor" (Hsuan, 688:2009).

Since the main focus of this present paper is to ascertain the importance and weight of nature versus nurture in the life of any particular individual, the same must be analysed for Huck as well. While we have previously encountered a character where nurture was, arguably, of more importance, now we shall briefly look at the effect a lack of nurture has on the literary individual.

For all intents and purposes Huck is a character which does not benefit from the plethora of nurturing inputs and is, as such, subject to the influence nature (the gene lottery as previously explained) has had on him. There is no better character to give as an example than Huck in this respect since we can positively argue that in Huck's case 'Nature' can and will be understood in both the denotative (d) and figurative (f) sense.

Huck, in his running away from the 'sivilised' society submits himself to the shaping power of nature (d). As he travels down the Mississippi River he faces and overcomes various challenges which end up shaping his understanding of the world, giving him an updated axiological stance on society, and also producing a more civilised individual than the narrative's 'sivilised' individuals (sic).

"Now was the first time that I begun to worry about the men-I reckon I hadn't had time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murders, to be in such a fix." (Twain, 1884:62) In Chapter 13, after Huck and Jim steal a raft full of supplies and leave a band of wicked men behind on a wrecked steamboat, Huck begins to worry about their well-being. Although he recognises that the men deserve punishment for their offences, Huck also empathises with the men, whom he'd abandoned in a very dangerous situation. Regardless of their villainy, these are human beings, and as such they have the same fear response as everyone else. Thus, this quote demonstrates Huck's ability to put himself in others' shoes.

"I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would a done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in." (Twain, 1884:65) This section, shows us that Huck doesn't have the slightest clue of what empathy really means and he is not aware of his ability to emphasise with other people. Huck seems to understand empathy only in terms of Christian duty, rather than morality. That is to say, he believes that the Widow Douglas would be proud of him for helping the men in the wrecked raft simply because they are "rapscallions." This type of response would be dictated by a strict sense of duty. However, Huck's actions are motivated by empathy; he projects himself into these men's experience. Thus, he acted morally, not just dutifully, furthermore proving Huck's journey to be an educational one, wherein Huck overcomes his initial, savage-like state and ends up being civilized by nature itself.

" [Jim] was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so." (Twain, 1884:133) In this quote, from Chapter 23, Huck demonstrates his ability to empathise across racial lines. This is an enormously significant moment, as it goes against contemporary social norms that tended to dehumanise black people. At the time when Huckleberry Finn is set, slaves were often understood and referred to in animal terms, which in turn made it difficult for white people to empathise with them in any meaningful way. Furthermore, Huck also struggles with this type of empathy, which he makes evident when he says that "it don't seem natural" for Jim to have a deep emotional attachment to his own family. Nevertheless, he concludes, "I reckon it's so" (Twain, 1884:133).

Quite possibly, in this academic's opinion, it is here where we encounter the biggest EQ transcendence shift in Huck throughout the entire narrative. It is well establish in the story that racism was an institutionalised attitude at the time, and so, it is in no way, shape, or, form, ludicrous to assume and expect that Huck had had a similar upbringing, which, in turn, translates into a similar attitude and way of life in the early years. One may even argue that, in a parallelistic approach, Huck (provided that he had succumb to Widow Douglas' techniques) would have been, in broad terms, the same as all of the other 'sivilised' members of society-an uptight, stuck-up, Caucasian, with deeply rooted father figure issues and a proclivity for violence and racism. However, and in lines with our theory, by not having benefitted from nurture-Huck had nature nurture him and help him overcome the aforementioned dispositions.

Huck learns a great deal of life lessons while exploring the river that contribute to the growth of his character. He learns how to live away from society's demands and harsh rules, but also learns the value of friendship, and values used to make decisions on what his instinct advises him to do.

Instinct plays an important role in Huck's evolution as he does not have the crutches of his upbringing to fall back on. He simply has his gut. His actions are as such mostly dictated by his gut, and not by his nurture (or lack thereof).

In a world that imposes who to be and what to do, and considering their status as fugitives, Jim and Huck create their own boundaries. The set their own rules to follow, and create their own limitations of what freedom should be. All of that is then underlined by the raft, the place where this liberty starts, and, tragically, also the place where the limits of this newfound freedom ends. In a way, the raft works as a symbol of a divine power, nature even, who blesses both Jim and Huck to continue on their journey and to learn from each other. There are no rules on the raft, except for, an unwritten rule of all those who enter must leave enlightened.

Both Huck and Jim, during their adventures, are put to several tests, tests which they learn from, and help them, especially Huck. As he passes all the tests (sometimes by choosing the right way, other times choosing the wrong path) he comes to a better understanding of what is right and what is wrong.

When Huck finds himself dealing with the men with guns looking for runaway slaves, the wisest choice for him would be to turn Jim to the gang, however his consciousness reminds him that Jim is running towards his freedom, much like Huck, realising that after all, they are not as different as he thought they would be. His instinct choses to protect his friend based not on what society has thought him to do, but on his own judgement. In this very scene, Huck proves that sometimes the right thing to do is not always what society tells you to, but you have to take life on, and face it dead in the eye. In a very much similar manner, Huck stares life directly in its proverbial soul and understands that no matter the outcome, no matter the choicegood or bad-Huck must carry on and live; live with the consequences, live with the choices, live with the mistakes, but, not without saying that with living with the aforementioned one, just as Huck, will also grow, learn, and expand ones views and understanding of the world. While it has been said before, the importance of this cannot go unstated. Huck transcends every boundary society had placed in front of him, and in doing so he teaches the others and the reader alike that nothing worth having comes easy.

It is here where we may draw a line between Huck's experience and Eliade's Rites and Symbols of Initiation. Eliade states that every initiation a human faces (be it being born, going through puberty, marriage, death) comes through the medium of trauma (1958: x). One cannot ascend, or transcend, if you will, to the next stage in life without trauma. This trauma is understood in terms of a loss, meaning that in order to reach the next stage, one must lose the former stageand that is traumatic for the individual since it takes said individual out of their comfort zone and puts them in entirely unchartered waters.

We may read Huck's adventures in the same key. His fight with the civilized society, his flight from the usurping authoritarian figures, his constant run and wanted status are very much like Eliade's rite of initiation. In order for Huck to reach that next stage of a heightened presence in the world, Huck must first go through the trauma of losing everything that he had acquired in the past. While surely an unpleasant phenomenon to undergo, at the end, once the threshold had been crossed, Huck emerges as a better figure, someone who has overcome all of society's prejudices.

During his adventures with Jim, he made good choices and bad choices, but he learned from them each time. If he were to stay with the widow Douglas, following her Christian rules and playing by the book, he wouldn't have lived those experiences and he wouldn't have made mistakes and he wouldn't have learned from them, hence he wouldn't have received a so called "education" from nature, and in doing so he most certainly would have failed his initiation rite into young adulthood.

"So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the river, and it DID seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river, and nobody to bother us." (Twain, 1884:183) In addition, when we consider the genes Huck had had passed down to him we ought to expect to discover a character much akin to the neanderthals of age. This is to say that since there is little to no information about his mother, and knowing the constantly inebriated state of his father we might be tempted to assume that Huck should and could become nothing more than the examples he had seen in his early stages of childhood. Simply put, Nature-in the figurative sense-has been nothing but savage with Huck and so, Huck ought to be the same. But this is the perfect example wherein we see a character overcoming this predicament. This is why it can be argued that, in this case, nature (f) doesn't have much to say since regardless of the gene pool, Huck does not end up like his father and so, while it was in his nature to be inadequate he surpasses all expectations (both the other characters' and the readers') ending up an updated version of a civilised person; certainly one that would have the characters of the times scoff and shrug.

The 19th century in the US was a time of reform. Be it religious, economic, social-everyone and everything would get a much needed update in regard to how things mundanely function. Be that as it may, this is not to say that the US was going through an age of enlightenment of sorts, far from it. Even if the US populous would now be rejecting the ideas of the harsh Calvinist doctrines and move towards a more humanitarian and liberal expressions of religion (preachers stressing the basic goodness of the human nature and urging believers to follow the examples of Christ), racism was as rampant as ever.

During the same period, social reforms launched unprecedented campaigns for the reduction of drinking, establishing prisons, creating public schools, advocating for the education of the deaf and blind-even going as far as advocating for equal rights for women. Be that as it may, Twain presents this era in the narrative as one riddled with drunks, degenerate fathers, uneducated children, and generally stiff upper lipped racist individuals; adequately and ironically called 'sivilised' folk. This context is thus ripe for the upbringing of children who would, in turn, perpetuate the same status quo.

Both in the book, and in the history of the time things are turned on their head-the Civil War ending slavery and Huck obliterating all pedagogical norms of the time while ending up a better human than his peers.

Another important aspect to be taken into consideration when it comes to Huck's upbringing is the family context. In his journey Huck is faced with moral choices which subsequently lead him to question the very idea of morality and the civilisation of society as such. Huck-at the end of the narrative becomes a character which outgrows his initial instincts of selfpreservation and assumes the role of a (in the eyes of the other characters) morally deviant youngster.

Huck rejects the 'prescribed morality' which is given to him by Widow Douglas and other authority figures insofar demonstrating how the experience of cruelty/kindness can ultimately affect the development of any individual's morality.

From the early onset of the narrative Huck is presented as a character who feels an ever present degree of restriction after being placed in Douglas' care by a judge who, ultimately, wishes that Huck be 'sivilised' and introduced to the proper Christian faith. Douglas tries to pass down to Huck basic principles of proper grammar, and religious dogmas, all the while aiming at improving Huck's literacy. Douglas also teaches, or tries to teach, Huck about proper posture, proper style, -in short how to properly be proper (sic). However, Huck only feels even more restricted and trapped, claiming and expressing his desire to leave and join a gang of thieves. He longs to go back to his more savage ways: smoking, cursing, slouching.

We may argue here that Huck rebels against the 'nurture' he gets, which, for any keen eye is certainly at least a half decent 'nurture'. The question that arrises here is would Huck have benefited more had he succumb to the teachings of Widow Douglas, and would he have become properly civilised at the same time? Certainly for some the answer is yes. Nonetheless, the approach Huck takes, while a paradoxical one (he runs away from nurture and education, just to be free, and in doing so end up nurturing and educating himselfmeaning that in the end he had no escape from being civilised) will prove to be most beneficial as he will deal, head on with matters less trivial than what to wear, how to speak, and how to dress (i.e. systemic and institutionalised racism, division of class, gender roles, and gender stereotypes-none of which would have been addressed by Widow Douglas).

In a way we may look at Huck as a reversed Eliza from Shaw's Pygmalion. Eliza, though heavily 'nurtured' and civilised ends up being unable to surpass her inherited nature as Higgins' techniques prove fruitless and futile. Then, if we consider Huck, and equate Higgins to Widow Douglas, we notice that Huck refuted all of Douglas' 'nurturing' techniques, yet he did not end up as he was in the beginning, but he ended up as a better and more evolved version of himself.

Huck's greatest battle, in this novel, is with himself and with his conscience. He continuously tries to differentiate between what is the right thing to do or what is the wrong thing, ultimately choosing none, but only following his heart.

After Huck runs away from his toxic and good for nothing father, he ends up on Jackson's Island and stays there for three days and three nights. While being on the island Huck manages to survive making use only of the resources made available to him by nature. He builds a tent where he can sleep and he takes care of procuring his necessary dietary needs by means of fishing and foraging. However, he begins to feel lonely and in a desperate need of company until he comes across a smoking campfire where he finds Jim, a fugitive slave, who falls to his knees and begs Huck not to hurt him. Later on, Huck begins to understands the value of friendship and the two companions start their journey together. During their travels, Huck's conscience troubles him relentlessly. He feels tremendous guilt when he realises that he is helping a fugitive gain freedom, something which he has been taught by society that is wrong.

"Conscience says to me: ''What had poor Miss Watson done to you, that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you, that you could treat her so mean? . . .'' I got to feeling somean and so miserable I most wished I was dead." (Twain, 1884:76) This particular scene is one of the most important key point which triggers Huck's evolution as a character. So, to relieve his guilt, he sets sail for shore, telling Jim he's going to see if they have passed Cairo, but in fact his intentions were to expose Jim. When he encounters two men who are looking for a runaway slave, he is put to a test. A test which he passes, because he ends up protecting Jim. However, when he returns back to the raft, he is "feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong" (Twain, 1884:79). Being unable to understand his choices and failing to understand that he has refuted the teachings of a corrupt society, he, out of naivety, comes to the conclusion that he is in fact a bad person and he saved Jim only because it made him feel good. Huck's conscience warns him that if he helps Jim, he will be responsible of Miss Watson's loss of property, then Jim tells him about his plan to save money and reunite with his family, adding that Huck is his best friend. That being said, Huck's conscience begins to afflict him even more. (Schinkel, 2011:512) Later on in the novel, when Jim is turned in by the King and Duke, Huck realises that he has to do everything in his power to free Jim. So far, Huck only had the role of a protector, companion and friend for Jim, but now he becomes aware of a much deeper understanding: freeing Jim is a far more serious crime than lying to protect him, but a person's live is at stake and he has to do everything in his power to save him. That being said, he disregards society's teachings and morals and decides that he would rather "go to hell" than abandon Jim.

According to Anders Schinkel, Huck's inability to distinguish what is the right or wrong thing to do, indicates the fact that he most definitely has a flawed moral education, and a child who has received a proper moral education, most likely would not experience such conflicts (2011:516). These struggles that Huck experiences might be a result of the double influences to which he was exposed by Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson. The Widow was quite severe and had countless rules, both moral and nonmoral, but her reasons for being moral were good, emphasising reward, as opposed to Miss Watson, who chose punishment. Copeland writes: "Whereas Miss Volume XXI Issue XIV Version I 30 ( ) Watson tries to get Huck to behave by telling him 'all about the bad place,' the widow, in a more stoic frame of mind, teaches Huck to pray for 'spiritual gifts', which means, as Huck says, 'I must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself' [. . .]" (Copeland, 1992:160). And Huck himself explains: "Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable" (Twain,1884:11) Throughout the novel, Huck is depicted as a liar, but his intentions are naive and he means no harm when he tells lies, in fact he believes them to be rather amusing. Another important key point in his evolution as a character is when Jim tries to teach him that lying is indeed unacceptable. Huck's ability to feel empathy is stunning, he feels guilty because he lied to Jim and ultimately says: "Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed HIS foot to get him to take it back.

"It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way." (Twain, 1884:74) It is undeniable that Huck's maturity and his general independence shift significantly during the book. In the beginning of the novel, he is portrayed as an immature young man who is incapable of having any sort of intellectual independence, however as he travels down the river with Jim and goes trough different experiences that challenge his ability to understand morality, he slowly matures into a young man who is capable of taking and owning his decisions. His path to maturation is rather slow, but it is undoubtedly noticeable when Huck reunites with his old companion Tom, and their personalities have significantly alternated. The end of the novel, may well be, an essential key point to Huck's transformation. The two boys agree that they have to break Jim out of jail and Tom wants to use a case-knife, however, Huck objects to his idea, a choice which he wouldn't have taken at the beginning, and wants to use the proper tool, the pickaxe:

"It might answer for you to dig Jim out with a pick, without any letting on, because you don't know no better; but it wouldn't for me, because I do know better. Gimme a case knife.' He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down, and says: 'Gimme a case-knife.' I didn't know just what to do-but then I thought. I scratched around amongst the old tools, and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he took it and went to work, and never said a word. He was always just that particular. Full of principle" (Twain 1884:247). While today's reader may, and very well will, find the pedagogical norms described in the book as antiquated and sacrilegious, quite possible, just as sacrilegious was the protagonist's pairing with Jim. This would have come as a shock for the readers of the time as being a person of color would never have been considered worthy of enjoying the company of the sivilised white folk.

Not only does Twain present such a pairing, but he also goes above and beyond (at least in the first two thirds of the book) in showing how this pair actually works and it doesn't portray any intrinsically problematic attitudes.

As mentioned previously, Huck did not benefit from having a proper father figure in his life. Moreover, it can be ascertained that since Huck's father had never thrust upon him any sort of fatherly advice, nor was he present character in the upbringing (or lack there of) Huck received, Huck never benefitted from the advantages fatherly love brings. Quite the opposite, really. It is this academic's opinion that acts of brutality, physical punishment, and starvation do not, and will not, qualify as act of fatherly love; not to mention Huck's kidnapping and attempted selling for alcohol.

Considering all of the above, it is easy to see why Huck had warmed up to Jim. While yes, at first, their relationship was still cancered by the faint traces of racism which were instilled in Huck by his previous caretakers, in time, the two characters become friends and, arguably, Huck starts seeing Jim as the father he never had. This comes at the most opportune moment as Huck had never, in the past, had a model of what a functioning family is. Jim, while separated from his family, tells Huck in the utmost detail about his loved ones, about how he was separated from them and how much anguish that caused him. Slowly, Huck starts learning the importance of family, of how much it matters to have it and to abide by it. If there is something very modern in this concept of family that Twain says, that is that "family" doesn't necessarily have to mean your blood relatives. Family can be just as powerful even if it is made out of people you've chosen in life.

It has previously been said that the nurture Huck didn't get from his caretakers he manages to get from Nature as is. Basically, through Jim, Huck gets to learn about the world all around him-from the natural elements, to the socio-economical attitudes and delusions of the time. Jim is a character of stunning compassion and brilliant intelligence. This, at first, doesn't come through as Jim is portrayed to be incredibly susceptible to superstitions, to the point of idiocy even, however, while reading more in depth one will find that while on Jackson's island Jim's superstition, in fact, hide a very strong and in depth understanding and knowledge of the natural world, and, as such, take a form of the alternative truth, the one the sivilised folk are against; a different form of intelligence if you will. On the river, Jim, by all intents and purposes becomes a surrogate father, a friend, a confident, taking care of Huck without displaying any of the smothering features widow Douglas would. Jim also functions as Huck's emotional caretaker, a therapist even, as Jim shelters Huck from the worst imaginable horrors they encounter, including the display of Pap's dead body, or the news of his father's death.

While it may be said that Jim acts as a much too passive of a character we ought to always keep in mind the reality in which Jim lives, and as such understand the paradigm which looms over his head. Jim is constantly at the mercy of every other sivilised character in the novel, this, of course, including the poor teenage Huck, who nearly sends the letter to Miss Watson. Jim is, however, a realistic person and understands his situation maybe better than any other character would. As such he understands that he must find ways of accomplishing his feats and goals without earning the wrath and punishment of those who would, sadly, have right of life or death over him. As such, in this very precarious position, Jim is rarely able to be anything but passive. He cannot act bold, or speak his honest mind. However, with all of that being said, and despite all of the numerous and idiotic restrictions Jim faces, he never, not for one second, shows any other trait other than nobleness. He is, thus, a good human, and a loyal friend. He is, as such, the only real adult in the novel who educates Huck by providing positive, respectable examples for Huck to follow.

A close familial relationship between a white boy and a black slave, like Huck and Jim, poses some major problems; the two must experience a gradual progression as they grow in their understanding and realisation of each other's worth and value. As they interact, both Huck and Jim get acquainted with the valuable qualities present in their respective characters and accept one another as adopted family members. Huck, as already mentioned, initially views Jim as a lessthan-equal slave and feels justified to exploit Jim's gullibility and simplicity for his own entertainment; however, with each new joke or trick he plays on Jim, Huck is struck with an increasing sense of shame and penitence for what he has done, gradually acquiring an understanding of Jim's equality and value as a human being and father figure. (Shrum, 2014:1) When Jim rightly calls Huck "trash" for treating him in that way, Jim assumes the role of admonishing parent, and Huck meekly submits and humbles himself to Jim, who "made [Huck] feel so mean [he] almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back" (Twain,1884:84). Another set of incidents that alerts Huck to Jim's natural, human characteristics is Jim's attitude toward his wife and children, whom he is forced to leave behind at the point of his flight from Miss Watson. At first, Jim's boldness and insistence that he would someday buy his family out of slavery or "get an Abolitionist to go and steal them" (Twain,1884:86) astonishes Huck and lowers Jim's standing in Huck's eyes, but later on, when Jim is brokenhearted over the loss of his family and his past harsh treatment of his deaf daughter, Huck begins to grasp the significance of Jim's humanity and realises that Jim "cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n" (Twain,1884:150).

Huck finally starts to understand that black people are just as natural as white, and that they have their equal rights, familial affections, and "natural human desires" (Joshi 2013:3) just as their white counterparts. For Huck, this is another step towards gaining that valuable friendship and familial relationship with Jim. Following the escape from the Wilks' and the subsequent recapturing by the Duke and the King, Huck begins to view Jim as a fatherly confidant and decides to have a "long gabble . . . and [tell] Jim everything" (Twain 1884:201).

Although Huck has a habit of lying "to conceal and preserve his private life" (Knoper 2013:128) from the public world, he doesn't mind telling Jim everything, thereby demonstrating his newfound trust and confidence in Jim. Huck's final decision to "go to hell" (Twain 1884:206) rather than betray Jim comes after Huck hears of Jim's capture, mourns over his loss, and recalls the kindness and unselfishness Jim has displayed toward Huck as a father would toward a son, and as Carol Freedman says, "he comes to a more heart-felt conception of what's right" (1997:103).

Together, Huck and Jim agree after their departure from the bloody Grangerford-Shepherdson feud that "there warn't no home like a raft, after all" (Twain, 1884:113). In addition, Jim shows a genuine care and sacrificial compliance in subjecting himself to Huck and Tom Sawyer's multitude of unnecessary and demeaning prison requirements during the evasion episode at the Phelpses'. Jim's willingness to meekly allow the two younger boys to put him under such humiliating conditions indicates his unconditional love toward and implicit trust in Huck as the "bes' fren' Jim's ever had" and the "on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his promise to ole Jim" (Twain, 1884:87).

Ultimately, as Robert Shulman indicates, Huck and Jim's relationship is characterised by "genuine feelings of joy and grief, real laughter and tears, the authentic language of the heart," which "all contribute to the value of the family [they] create" (1986:33).

Provided that Huck is the realist of the novel, Tom Sawyer is the ideal romantic. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are a rather peculiar duo, being the most wellknown characters in American literature. The two leading characters in Mark Twain's novels are very good friends for many years, however they are in fact very distinctive.

Even though both of them share the disadvantage of being orphans, they are raised in different environments. Tom lives in a loving and caring environment and is raised by his aunt who is able to offer him the proper nurture a child his age needs, in contrast to Huck who most of the time is alone and has an abusive father who frequently treats him violently and forbids him to pursue an education. It is indisputable that the two companions share a very different educational upbringing, a matter which is very much displayed in their actions. Huck is a free spirit and as we sink deeper into the narrative, we are able to gain a deeper understanding of why Huck choses to follow his instincts and to believe only in things that he can see and discover some things the hard way instead of listening to others, who according to society's beliefs is the right thing.

Huck's worldview is a great deal different from Tom's, simply because Huck does not live in an imaginative world as Tom does. He refuses to follow the rules, he believes that life is not a game and while he is not aware of the fact that he already is more mature than Tom he choses to leave society behind and prefers to be a participant into the authentic real world where he can discover and determine the genuine right or wrong. As the story slowly develops, we see Huck gaining more and more understanding of the society in which he lives and with the help of his companion, Jim, he manages to evaluate it morally and spiritually and discard it without a doubt. (Bhasha,65). With every adventure, he gains much more experience and with every initiation, he becomes more aware of the fact that he needs to totally reject what society has taught him. To such a degree, all attempts at initiation involve Huck "in an elemental conflict where the value of one world are pitted against the values of another" (Bhasha,65).

The Huckleberry Finn's adventures only seem to address the river trip of Huckleberry Finn and Jim but contain intended but hidden meanings. At the end of the post-Civil War reconstruction era, Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn's adventures, a white guy and a black slave on a raft down the Mississippi River could only raise a controversy about racism. The connection between Huck and Jim appears both vertical and horizontal; in the slavery system, the person is either immutable or changing; Jim's character is both lower and greater than whites. The text demonstrates the restrictions and the likelihood of reconciliation between the two races taking account of these ambivalent examples. It is therefore very difficult to argue that Huckleberry Finn's Adventures indicate any limitation or opportunity. However, this ambivalent approach becomes normal when we realise that an individual can't be isolated from a social structure. You cannot exist away from society altogether. Since we were born and raised in a society, we have no other choice but to have a social standard like slavery affected. However, it's because we make the fetters that we should break free from them. Until this day, racists were always a hot potato. Therefore, looking both at the limitation and at the potential bigotry of Huckleberry Finn's adventures would make sense.

The 1880's Mark Twain's classic tale, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is one of the classics of American literature, but also a mirror for the profoundly rooted racial attitudes of the South. (Amina, 2014:44) Firstly the liberal usage of the term -nigger to the whole novel -is not to mention the most controversial and clear. The word -nigger is simply a representation of the times-used by Twain as a derogative phrase by contemporary Americans. Huckleberry Finn portrays a period in which blacks were not treated as human beings but as mere property, emotional and personal. In the beginning, Jim is only known for his property, for instance (Miss Watson). He is avoided as a property, even sold -to a family who would most probably treat him even less humanely.

"Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out: "It warn't the grounding --that didn't keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head "Good gracious! anybody hurt?" "No'm. Killed a nigger. "Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt." (Twain,1884: 214) In Fiskin's study, these few lines of dialog say something about how people in black people were seen at that time: they are nothing else, nothing else but humans, with lives with little to no importance for everyone. Huck's own character, and how he responds to the runaway Negro Slave, Jim, is most apparent in the South's racist attitude. Huck's just an atmosphere and a childhood commodity. Though he represents the brutality and injustice of the South to Black people, he does not know that this is the wrong way of behaving (Fiskin, 2005:2) But he's uncertain at first how to manage Jim. He shows attitudes that represent his times first. Jim's tricks and dialogs are embedded in Jim, which makes Jim look particularly stupid-or perhaps painfully conscious of his own inferiority. (Amina, 2014: 45) The trick weighed most heavily on Huck and Jim, MacLeod argues, as Huck claims to have been there all along, despite having vanished from the raft. The worried Jim maintains he thought Huck nearly drowned, but Huck plays Jim a fool, tricking him to believe that he was dreaming. In contrast, Jim appears as a Negro stereotype in times: a backward buffoon and many superstitions with its slave dialect Only much later, as we uncover his admirable nature, particularly his fierce loyalty to his friend, Huck (MacLeod, 1995:2), will he assume a more human face. Huck also represents the view of White South that Black people were considerably lower. Huck concludes the talk with himself in his discussion of King Salomon and the French in Chapter 14: "I see it warn't no use wasting wordsyou can't learn'. a nigger to argue. So I quit" (Twain,1884:104)" Huck ends up being apparently irritated by the conversation change and rejected the analytical potential of the black man -his ability to understand, to see reason and to think rationally. This again points to the inherent assumption of the White South that the black person is less than that. Huck is often likely to say things early on that which further illustrate how he has profoundly racist attitudes. He refuses to apologise for any kind of company dictating that after the trick he plays on Jim is far below him. Jim still has to understand that, in these days, as a black he is lower than white. The rule of society is not denied by friendship, and even Huck is much superior to him with his good friend. Huck also takes responsibility for the rigid racial laws in his culture even in the book as Chapter 31, where empowering a black man is "low-down":

"And then think of ME! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his 47 boots for shame. That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it" (Twain, 1884: 219). But Huck's attitude towards his black partner is beginning to change in the course of the story. This is a fight for him at first and a reader gets a certain sense of Huck, who has always been obliged to think by society. For example, although Jim's excuses for his tricks are reluctant, he feels really the trash to which Jim links him. (Amina, 2014:46) Huck meets a group of white men who are searching for rushed slaves. He fights for a while over the morality of Jim's hiding, always seeing Jim as a stolen property and not a human. He swings around, however, and hides Jim from the men with an intelligent ruse. Finally, Huck and Jim both gain a certain amount of freedom after a long and arduous fight. Not just liberation from Huck's "culture" and Jim's slavery but liberation from the rigid mentality of the South racist. Huck learns to look at Jim not only as a Black, a bag, or a lower and useless person, but also as a person and as a friend.

Jim is often portrayed in the text as superior to the Whites, despite criticism of Jim's character. In citing the example that Huck saves Jim from slavery, Smith emphasises Jim's moral superiority (Smith 2018:8). Jim is familiar, reliable and trustworthy. This feature provides white people with a refreshing jolt and even changes them. Unlike Huck's dad, Jim shows his family affection. Huck does not grasp the family spirit of the slaves at the start of the river journey. He did not live in a real family relationship; he believes that it is normal to live dispersed for a slave family. So, when Jim says that he wants to buy his wife and kids, and then live together, Huck says, "Give an inch to the nigger and take the ell." (Twain,1884:76) In the 23rd chapter, however, Huck feels empathy when Jim moans and grumbles and tells Huck to his daughter. Even Huck portrays Jim as careful as whites for his family and it looks natural. On the journey, he learns that Jim is a decent person. In addition, Jim watches the raft in Huck's place and lets Huck sleep. Since Jim has kids and Huck is a young boy, Huck might be considered a sibling. So, Huck's heart is more and more mellowed by Jim's familyoriented and compassionate mind.

Jim also demonstrates his confidence in a tough situation. In the 40th chapter in particular, Tom takes a bullet to help Jim escape. Tom puts himself in danger in many ways. Since Tom wants to be more exciting in the adventure, he makes the escape plan difficult and even risky. When Jim, Huck and Tom flee the hut, the villagers fiercely pursue them and fire a weapon. But Tom can't blame Jim or Huck in its entirety. But Jim voluntarily assumes the burden.

"Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz him dat 'uz bein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one?' Is dat like Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You bet he wouldn't! Well, den, is Jim gwyne to say it? No, sah--I doan' budge a step out'n dis place, 'dout a doctor; not if it's forty year!'" (Twain,1884: 247) Jim waits for Huck and his doctor for Tom. Huck goes to the village to ask a doctor for help. Jim decides to put the security of Tom first. After all, the doctor comes to the raft, but since there is so much work to do, he needs some help. Jim gets out and helps him save Tom hidden in the bush. However, the doctor locks him up, and hands him over to Aunt Sally, despite Jim's sacrifice. The doctor even says a thousand-dollar nigger like Jim is worth. The doctor considers Jim no more and no less as land. So, Jim demonstrates moral dominance over whites, judging from this scene.

Among literary critics there's a big debate whether Huckleberry Finn is or not a racist novel by Mark Twain. The issue is based on Jim, the black slave, and on how Huck and other characters treat him. Some commentators, who think that Twain use the term "nigger" too loosely, even make a statement. The word "niggers" in a negative light, Mark Twain never portrays Jim. He shows Jim not like a drunkard, a middle man, or like a thief. This goes against the way that is represented by Huck's (white) father, described by Twain using all the above features and more. We consider Jim a true friend, a man dedicated to his family and faithful to his friends. Still he's very naive and aberrant. Some critics argue Twain implies that everybody in black has these qualities. When Jim turns to his magic hairball for potential answers, we see he trusting some stupid stuff. However, both blacks and whites visit him to use the powers of hairball. This kind of naiveness at the time was abundant and the product of a lack of proper training was found in all races (Amina 2014:47).

The representation of Jim therefore is not negative, because Jim is dumb and inferior and, of course, there is no prejudice in this aspect of the story. The white characters handle Jim in the book also needs A to be analysed. Notice that most of the characters around Jim do not feel the author and his sentiments are possibly only shown by Huck. Black people were regarded as less in the South than humans during that time, and Twain had to portray it. For the historical accuracy, Jim is denigrated by the example of how he has been locked up, his face hidden during the day, and how he is usually ridicule. But, even though it's not how he felt, Mark Twain had to show Jim's treatment in this manner. But Huck is not treating Jim like most whites are treating Jim.

Huck sees Jim as a comrade, and disagrees at the end of their trip with the idea that black people are lower. The tale contains two key examples. The first is when Huck's attempts to steal his own children are disgusted by Jim, which are "a possession of someone else." While Huck is still racial, Twain wrote the scene to mock the idea that the children of somebody could in reality be the property of an alien because the father is black.

The distinction between Jim and Pap clearly underlines the book's anti-racist aspect. Pap is an uneducated, violent, alcoholic and rash white father, Huck. Jim, however, is careful, compassionate, protective and human when being the adopted figure of Huck's paternality. Huck runs away from his dad, and encounters Jim, a fugitive slave, who decides to bind him. The slavery of Huck is comparable to that of his white dad, as horrific as slavery of Jim is compared to slavery of Watson, both of which run away from home. This means that slavery is unfair and should not be accepted in any way.

The Mississippi River is the physical setting for and the symbolic representation of the route Huck takes through the adventures that test the principles of actin which guide him. (Banta 1968:79) Despite their differences in class and race, Huck and Jim both face immediate threats that heighten their need to flee. Huck's cruel, alcoholic father kidnaps him and is willing to hurt him in order to obtain his fortune. Jim, on the other hand, overhears Miss Watson talking about selling him downriver, where she could get a lot of money for him. Both of these events culminate in a flight to Jackson's Island, where Huck and Jim embark on their journey together.

Much as Huck and Jim are escaping from various modes of imprisonment, they both have divergent ideas of what freedom would look like, posing the question of whether there is a common meaning of the concept or whether each individual's concept of freedom is special. In Huck's case, he imagines that freedom would allow him to live an unlimited life of adventure and discovery, free of the constraints of society and religion. Huck's view of democracy, strongly inspired by his relationship with Tom Sawyer, is naive since it comes from a position of relative privilege. (Banta 1968:79) Jim's idea of independence, on the other hand, is much more modest: he hopes to raise enough money to reunite with his family by leaving slavery. Since Jim is constantly reminded that he is another person's property with no personal liberty, the freedom he seeks is easier, more basic, and yet more profound: a state of being both literal and figurative.

The Mississippi River serves as a powerful symbol of independence for both Huck and Jim, but the symbol behaves differently for each character. Huck and Jim have full sovereignty on their raft. Huck gets a deep sense of peace from being on the river at night, invisible to the rest of the world when moving quickly across it: "You feel mighty free and easy and relaxed on a raft." Being on the river represents independence for Huck. (Nilon, 1984:21) The Mississippi River is a road to freedom for Jim, who hopes to travel it to the free states along the Ohio River. Jim is still a slave, his life is still in danger, and his personal liberty is still jeopardised as long as he and Huck are riding on the Mississippi. This is why he and Huck often travel at night, and he hides in the wigwam during the day when Huck, the king, and the duke come ashore. Although the river is a destination in and of itself for Huck, it is a means to an end for Jim, representing independence in principle but not in practice. (Nilon 1984:23) Ultimately, and to conclude this article, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not about the adventures per se, it's about the story of one boy overcoming his flawed upbringing -but not by using the means provided by the civilised population but by going through a series of life threatening, and life altering trials and tribulations that, ultimately, give us, the reader, a different, a more civilized type of Huck, than what we might have expected to see if we were to consider all the issues and problems Huck had to go through.

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