The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Admission/Application Essay Example

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Summary The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is set during the 1840’s in the town of St. Petersburg, Missouri. This book is a sequel to Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It is narrated by Huckleberry; he starts out by stating the events that occurred since the last book in which he comes across a treasure along with his dramatic friend Tom Sawyer. In this book, Huckleberry lives with Widow Douglas and her sister. They are trying to civilize him by sending him off to school and church regularly.

Huckleberry finds his new life to be quite boring. All the discipline, cleanliness and manners become much too tedious for him. Tom Sawyer persuades Huckleberry to stay with Widow Douglas but also assures him that things will not always remain the same. Huckleberry‘s life gets even worse when his father arrives in town to claim his part in his son’s money. Despite his guardian’s protests, judge decrees that Huckleberry’s custody has to be awarded to his father who celebrates by going on a drinking binge.

Huck has to be locked up to keep him from escaping. Huck enjoys this much welcome change from the “civilized” lifestyle but later he decides to escape because of the repeated abuses. He fakes his own death and canoe’s to Jackson’s Island. There he comes across Jim, a runaway slave. Together they embark down the Mississippi river towards Cairo, Illinois. However, due to foggy conditions they go past it. Further down the river, their raft hits a steamboat and they are separated. Huck goes ashore and is adopted by the Grangefords.

However, he decides to leave when he is involved in family feuds as some family members are killed. Huck and Jim re unite and continue on their journey to the Free states. They come across two swindlers who take them on their boat. Together they go on escapade, one of which eventually backfires and the travelers escape further down the Mississippi. The swindlers also con Jim and sell him to a local farmer. Despite his friendship with Jim, it weight heavily on Huckleberry’s heart that Jim is an escaped slave and someone’s property.

He starts to write a letter to Jim’s owner but then decides against it because of Jim’s loyalty and friendship. He makes up his mind to help Jim achieve his freedom. Huck finds out that Jim is now in the ownership of the Phelps family. He goes to their farm where he is mistaken for Tom. It turns out that Tom Sawyer, Huck’s friend, is a Phelps relative. Huck later meets Tom and enlists his help in freeing Jim who is being imprisoned in a cabin. Tom and Huck dig a tunnel to the cabin to get food and other necessitates to Jim.

They wait for the right time, and when it comes, they escape and head towards the raft. However, they are found and Tom is hit with a bullet. After a doctor treats him, all three are brought back to the farm, where Jim is soon to be executed. However, Tom’s doctor insists that Jim helped him save Tom and he should be forgiven. Therefore, they put him in chains instead. At the end of the book, Tom’s aunt arrives to reveal the boys’ real identities. Tom discloses that when Jim’s real owner has passed away declaring him free in her final will.

Jim reveals that Huck’s father is dead and he does not have to be scared anymore. Huck does not want to be adopted and opts to head out west in search of more adventures.  BibliographyTwain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Chatto & Windus/Charles L. Webster And Company, Print.