Lauren Huck Finn Close Reading

Huck Finn reflects much of Mark Twain's childhood, but no part more so then where Huck talks about the freedom of being on the river. As a child Mark Twain dreamed of being a Steam Boat captain because he pictured it as the ideal job, a chance at freedom and to impress the other boys. Huck feels free on the river, unconfined and unrestricted "Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft."(Twain 88) Twain felt that the river would be a place of freedom, and this is reflected in the sentiments of Huck. Twain uses words like cramped and smothery to describe other places, and words like free and easy and comfortable to describe life on the raft. Life on the river was a chance at freedom and independence for both Twain and Huck.  "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 154) This reflection shows the freedom felt on the river by Huck and Jim, it is also a reflection of Mark Twain's own childhood ideology of life on the river. On the river Huck learns a lot about race and acceptance. Words like sliding, free, big, nobody, are used to give a picture of the vastness, serenity and freedom of the river.