As I started to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
an activity that had become familiar due to high school literature courses,
I found it difficult to focus my attention on the text, distracted by the past annotations
marring the pages of my worn copy of the novel.
During my four years of high school, I was asked to read Mark Twain’s
novel three separate times. Each teacher
assigned a different assignment to complete or concept to explore. As I freshmen, I marked quotations from each
chapter to complete the required journal entries for the course. As a junior I marked passages of symbolism in
preparation for the cumulative AP exam.
As a senior, I annotated the text in an attempt to thoroughly read the
novel in preparation for a multiple choice exam. I had read the book numerous times in the
past, but I had never read it with the purpose of studying the “coming-of-age”
theme. This goal proved difficult as I
read through the text, diverted by the purposes of my countless annotations
from the past. However, I soon realized that
my own “coming-of-age” was reflected in my annotations, that the change in my
maturity and perspectives could be seen in the scrawled writing and passage
markings from my past experiences with the text.
As I read through this novel for a fourth time, focusing on
the theme of “coming-of-age”, different passages jumped out at me than the
passages I had previously deemed as important.
During high school, I had marked obvious passages containing major
events or key characters; now, I found myself finding value in formerly untouched
sections of text. For example, I never
before marked the passage at the end of chapter nineteen when Huck denounces
the King and Duke; the last paragraph of this passage, exemplary of Huck’s
“coming-of-age” struggle, remained free of pencil and highlighter markings. But with the “coming-of-age” theme as my
focus, this final paragraph immediately drew my interest. In this passage Huck reveals that he knew the
King and the Duke “warn’t no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs
and frauds”. Huck divulges however that
he “never said nothing, never let on” to prevent quarrelling among the group
and “keep the peace in the family”. Huck
maturely writes that if Pap taught him nothing else of value, he did teach him
that “the best way to get along with his (Pap’s) kind of people is to let them
have their own way” (p.164). This is an
important realization that provides the reader with insight into Huck’s growth
and continuing journey towards self-actualization.
At
first, I was embarrassed that I had missed the importance of this passage, not
once, but three times! I had read the
novel as an honors student, an AP student, a student well practiced in the art
of deciphering and analyzing text. I
began to wonder why I found value in this passage only now, after five years,
when previously the passage held no value or relevance for me. I knew the book had not changed; I was
reading the exact copy I had read five years ago. The words, characters, and events did not
undergo some dramatic alteration which enabled me to see clearly that which had
eluded me before. I concluded that if
the novel had not changed, it must have been I who changed. Had my own life experiences and growth
enabled me to look at the text with a new perspective? Was my new found interest in this passage a
sign that I, like Huck, am on a continuing journey of growth and
discovery? While reading the remainder
of the novel, similar instances of my analytic discrepancy emerged, providing
further evidence that my perspective concerning life and society had
drastically changed and matured since first reading the novel five years prior.
One passage that resonated with me as I read the novel this fourth
time was the exchange between Sherburn and the mob at the beginning of chapter
twenty-two. This entire chapter was blank, unmarked as I began to read. This chapter, devoid of any previous signs of
interaction, revealed that I had found the content either boring or irrelevant
the first three times I had read the text.
I was astonished to realize how easily I had skipped over this passage
during my previous readings, shocked to discover that I had found no merit in a
passage that I now viewed as critical to the development of the novel and
insightful into Huck’s journey and “coming-of-age”. In this passage, Sherburn, a man persecuted
by a mob for murder, boldly declares that the men in the mob were a bunch of
cowards, hiding behind masks of false bravery.
Sherburn declares that the men of the mob possess no real individual bravery,
that they come to persecute him with a “courage that’s borrowed from their
mass”. Sherburn continues to denounce
the mob, placing their false courage on public display and ordering the men to
“go home and crawl in a hole”. The members
of the mob, stripped of their courageous façade, quickly disperse and vanish as
Sherburn exposes their cowardice.
I now see clearly what had evaded me during
prior readings of this novel. I now
realized that this denouncement of man’s tendency to hide behind the courage of
others, this exposing of man’s cowardly nature is a key passage in this
novel. Throughout the novel, Huck
wrestles with the decision of whether he should adhere to the expectations of
society or create and follow his own moral code. I believe that as Huck listened to Sherburn’s
denunciation of the cowardice of the mob, he was forced to further question
whether his loyalty should reside in society’s corrupted expectations or his
own beliefs about right and wrong. This
question, whether to follow societal norms and “blend in” or to remain loyal to
one’s ethical beliefs and possibly “stand out” is a core question individuals
must face as they “come-of-age”; Sherburn’s speech poses this question for Huck
Finn, forcing him to confront his own choices and beliefs.
I am
glad that I had the opportunity to read this novel once more, to explore the
text with a perspective formed from my life experiences and personal
growth. How I view passages and
characters in this text today differs strongly from how I first viewed the same
passages and characters when I first read the novel. There is no doubt in my mind that Mark Twain
forces his reader to explore the same questions and issues Huck faces himself
throughout the course of the novel. By
reading the novel multiple times, I have been forced to face these questions
and issues armed with different life experiences and different levels of
understanding about the world around me.
For me, reading this novel proved more than a literary exercise or
course requirement; instead, reading this novel was an opportunity for me to
reflect upon my “coming-of-age” within the last five years and trace how my
perspectives and beliefs have grown.
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