COA: The Evolution of Huckleberry Finn

  Huckleberry Finn is arguably one of the most influential books of the last two centuries. Being written in the time during the Reconstruction Era but the setting of the book takes place in the era of slavery in the U.S, it's plot shows the hardships of slavery yet also hints at the struggle for blacks to gain acceptance after the Civil War. Now what makes the setting and issue of this book so fitting for the "Coming of Age" genre is the fact that the protagonist has to learn the struggles of growing up during a very hypocritical and cruel time period. The issue of growing up that is addressed in this book is a young persons deciding whether to rebel or join his societies culture.
                        This theory I have applies to many of the protagonist's (Huckleberry Finn) experiences and struggles throughout the book. In a quick overview, Huck Finn is the abused son of the town drunk but after finding a great amount of money and his father gone missing, he lives with a widow name Mrs.Watson who tries to teaches Huck to be civilized, however Huck having a mean street personality dislikes the civilized life because his superstitous country attitude is not allowed. When is drunk father comes back and he is forced to continue to live with him again, Huck runs away but this time not only from his father but from Mrs.Watson as well.This is the first example of Huck's split between culture, where he is dislikes acting in the proper way of his century. The second example is drastically different, where now Huck is split between a huge cultural part of his era which is of course; slavery. In short, Huck meets runaway slave, Jim (formerly owned by Mrs.Watson) who is afraid that Mrs.Watson will sell him, so he runs away. Huck is left with two options and that is to turn Jim in to the authorities or run away with him which is the equivalent of running away with stolen property. Here is where Huck has to decide whether to go against his societies culture or join it's cruel nature. Huck is someone who is more of a person who just stays out of issues like this since his father was a raving racist lunatic but now he is ironically placed in a situation where he must step in. This situation helps bring light to Huck's eyes on how terrible the issue of slavery is, after all this time of trying to keep a neutral opinion on it.
           Huckleberry Finn also shows the COA experience of the runaway youth character. When everyone is young, there is often that want to run away from home and Huck Finn is a story that talks about how a child would grows as he is on his own. As in every COA book, the main character only "comes to age" during the journey through the conflict he/she is facing. Huck's coming to age is shown with the choices he makes. Mainly his choice to help Jim. Huckleberry Finn had to choose right and wrong. He also made the choice to be honest to the girls and reveal the two men who were frauds. Huck can be independent and take care of himself. But he had to feed himself, etc before the widow took im in. Huckleberry Finn also has a desire for a certain kind of life which is being free and outdoors (but in a way that shows he is still young and a child). After all that is not realistic adult thinking.
             For the final paragraph, all it will be is a review of the book. I have had the book, Huckleberry Finn for a while since it's been collecting dust in my old bedroom. Now that I have finally read the book, I must say that it was an okay book. Maybe it's because our generation is much different from the one it was made for at the time but I did find the book's conflict interesting at times especially involving more insight with Huck and his fathers relationship. But one thing I would like to take away from the book is the fact that Jim's dialogue is one of the hardest to read in the history of literature. It's not that I don't appreciate what he's saying but it's like redneck shakespearean, it's so hard to understand and it kind of turned me off from the book. It definitely led the way for many other COA novels and it is a piece of not only literary history but also U.S history.