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Escape, The Counterbalancing Theme Based On Characterization Escape, The Counterbalancing Theme Based On Characterization Huck Finn was an action hero, he moved in any direction available in order to get out from under civilization and to escape its restrictions. (Clemens, Chapter XVIII, etext). In this sense, Huck carries a black voice through a book about slavery, but his real voice has multiple ethnic definitions (Lindsey, et al. 36 (8) ). His escape and the escape he orchestrates for Jim are a personal escape from the stifling confines of the sivilized world that caused / causes inhumanity (Clemens, Chapter I, etext). Twain accomplishes this through a combined black and white voice, and uses Huck's references to escaping go beyond that voice to reflect injustice. Huck's feelings are so deep because he feels and is enslaved throughout the story, and his response to being locked up is both physical and emotional. This is in direct contrast to the comfortable characters in the story.
This duality and counterbalancing of feeling and purpose affect Huck and other characters throughout the novel, and the dual desires of being penned up and free are its continually contrasting themes. In many ways, Huck Finn was black, at least insofar as being black embodies all of the voices of those who are not content to sit back, dream about making changes, but not act upon them like the character of Tom Sawyer. Clemens writes: The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldnt stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. (Clemens, Chapter I, etext).
In this passage, Clemens points out how satisfying freedom is to Huck, and also points out the conflicting moral dilemmas surrounding trying to be respectable in civilization and also to escape it. Tom and the Widow Douglas represent civilization, both the good and the bad, but for Huck, civilization does not represent freedom. Lance Morrow writes that Twain and [Frederick] Douglass were friends, and this gives added depth to the sensibilities expressed in Huckleberry Finn (Morrow 28 (4) [Emphasis added]). In this respect, Huckleberry Finn is a representation of Twain's respectability and his desire to escape from it. It also represents the opposite desire of Douglass, which is to escape slavery and achieve respectability. In many ways, this feeling is accomplished through the characterization of Widow Douglas who was dismal regular and decent in all her ways, but a symbol of enslavement for Huck. (Clemens, Chapter I, etext).
On the other hand, the story also represents the unfree slave seeking freedom in the character of Jim, the movement in which Frederick Douglass was embroiled. This is the purpose for the continual contrasting of the dreamer Tom Sawyer, who will grow up to be respectable, but who is not active in the pursuit of his purported dreams as either Huck Finn or Jim. It isnt that Tom Sawyer doesnt dream of action, it is merely that he is confined to the rules of civilization. This is the position of Frederick Douglass. His actions are relegated to non-violent and more passive forms of action.
Because Huck is white and free, he can act as the black voice very effectively as he passes back and forth between freedom and enslavement. The further value of counterbalancing the various white and black characters is that Twain is able to define a mix of ethnicity s. He counterbalances Jims caring for Huck on the river in Chapters XIII and XIV with the gentle manliness of Col. Grangerfords in Chapter XVIII. Jims caring is real, Grangerfords is only viewed that way, because his pleasantness is recognized by Huck from a societal definition of caring that fits only when contrasted to Pap.
Huck's black voice is heard in the relationship he has with Pap. When Pap returns, and keeps him captive in Chapter VI, Huck escapes Paps unfailing punishment by going to school to spite pap and by planning his eventual escape. At the same time, Clemens writes: He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights want long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it all but the cowhide part... (Clemens, Chapter VI, etext). This passage, like the one in Chapter VIII where Huck is hiding in the leaves and laying prone on the ground while horse riders pass, represent the black voice.
He is locked up, beaten, enslaved, and forced to treat his owner (Pap) with respect despite being the recipient of horrific abuse very similar to the abuse he knows is experienced by Col. Grangerfords slaves. But a part of Huck is unsure about the civilized prison awaiting him on the other side of the river with Widow Douglas. Huck says: I was scared I didnt want to go back to the widows any more and be so cramped up and sivilized. (Clemens, Chapter VI, etext). It is Huck's understanding of slavery that gives him incentive to fight for Jims freedom in the last chapters. Huck doesnt like being locked up in any fashion, and he truly understands the concept.
Perhaps this is the defining argument for Twain in regards to his friend Douglas dilemma as well. That this duality is emotional for Huck is mostly expressed throughout the novel in terms of being lonesome, or being fearful. For example, when Pap disappears for three days, Huck becomes lonesome, and he is lonesome when he doesnt agree with Tom Sawyers A-rab's. (Clemens, Chapter II, etext). When he sees Jim, he says: I want lonesome now. (Clemens, Chapter VIII, etext). The most expressive scenes in this regard are in the action scenes on the river. Huck says as he watches white men hunt black men: shooting at them and singing out, Kill them, kill them!
It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I aint a-going to tell ALL that happened it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadnt ever come ashore that night to see such things. I aint ever going to get shut of them lots of times I dream about them. (Clemens, Chapter XVIII, etext). Ralph Ellison stated: The spoken idiom of American negroes... [was] absorbed by the creators of our great 19 th-century literature even when the majority of blacks were still enslaved. Mark Twain celebrated it in the prose of Huckleberry Finn. (Fishing 81 (5) ).
Through the intermingling of ethnicity s in the form of Huck Finn, Twain was able to not only express the black voice through black characters, but through a white character. In contrast, through the expression of a white boys emotions and sympathies in regard to the treatment of slaves, Twain was able to also make Huck's voice the voice of a white society working toward the goals of enslaved blacks. Yet, the overlying theme of both of these cultures for Huck was escape. Twain had Huck discuss escape, pine for it, plan it for himself, and help Jim escape, not only physically but politically.
In the end, Huck agreed to become civilized in order to make that happen. In this respect, Huck represented the ideals and roles of both Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass in abolitionist America. For Twain, this counterbalancing was essential in the fight for humanity. As Huck says of himself: People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum but that dont make no difference. (Clemens, Chapter VIII, etext).
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