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Huckleberry Finn’s Search for the “Father”
Critics Bernard De Voto believes that Adventurers of Huckleberry Finn is a book that
closer to the life of Americans as a nation than any other novels by highlighting its
nationality and Americaness shown both in the novel’s moral structure as well as in its
narrative framework. This essay will focus on the protagonist Huck’s journey to the west,
and holds that this journey is a searching journey for Huck during which Huck not only
grows under the guide of the father-like figure Jim and even grows into a father figure
having all the qualities for Americans and even human beings in general.
Firstly, there is an obvious absence of the figure of “father” through most part of the novel
in which Huck’s father either does not appear or acts as a annoyance for Huck confesses
that “Pap he hadn’t been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I
didn’t want to see him no more.”(Mark Twain 21) Huck's Pap was never there for him
except maybe to give him a tanning. Huck's Pap thought that he was trying to out do him,
because he went to school. "You've put on considerable many frills since I been away. I'll
take you down a peg before I get done with you. You think you're better'n your father, now
don't you, because he can't? I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with
such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?-- who told you you could" (26). This obvious absence of
the “Father” prompts Huck to embark his journey away from his biological and annoyed
father and his search of the “Father” with the nigger Jim. It is interesting to note here that
the figure of Jim, according to some critics, resembles many characteristics of a female
considering that Jim is considerate and sentimental, sensitive to emotions upheavals. But I
think Jim is more a figure of protector and guide for life than a feminine weeper. In Huck’s
eyes, Jim is a nice companion who he “was ever so glad to see Jim. I warn’t lonesome
now.”(57) Jim as a father figure in the novel can be seen from many descriptions given by
Huck’s narration; there are many phases like “Jim said, he said, and Jim said” dispersing
throughout the novel. If it is safe for us to say that Huck, before the journey with Jim, is a
