| As it happens in the many outstanding works | | | | life. Pap shows his inner darkness and |
| of literature, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | | | | inability to love his only son in the passage |
| comprises of several themes developed around | | | | when he tries to get Huck's reward money. Pap |
| a central plot. In the case of Mark Twain's | | | | lies to the judge that he is a "new and |
| novel, it is a story of a young boy, Huck, | | | | changed man" with different life and his eyes |
| and an escaped slave, Jim with the | | | | are turned to God now. The next morning, |
| description of their moral, ethical, and | | | | however, judge sees him lying dead drunk on |
| human development during thrilling adventures | | | | his porch with a broken arm back to his old |
| down the Mississippi River that brings them | | | | ways. This episode certainly doesn't depict |
| into many conflicts with greater society. | | | | any fatherly love except Pap's love for |
| The big society | | | | spirits and easy money earned by so much |
| however is not Huck's major concern, it's his | | | | hated society. He would be an almost a comic |
| father who himself is an outsider and a | | | | figure in the novel, if his existence didn't |
| rebel. Pap is the one who makes Huck's life | | | | have such a tragic impact on Huck's poor |
| much more complicated than all the rest | | | | heart. The irony of the novel is multileveled |
| people in the world. Although being a father | | | | and one of its illustrations is depicted in |
| is an important role and a huge | | | | Pap's monologue, when he condemns a nation |
| responsibility in normal families, Pap shows | | | | who would allow a black person to vote. This |
| no such concern toward Huck. The only thing | | | | is an unthinkable nonsense to him and yet he |
| he cares about is getting drunk every day | | | | has no right to even say things like that. He |
| until he doesn't remember himself. Pap is a | | | | treats his own son worth than a slave, a |
| contrasting figure to Jim who is described in | | | | morally dead human claims to know what other |
| the book as the agent of goodness and | | | | people should or should not do. Often Pap |
| honesty. Huck's father is the example of all | | | | gets "too handy with his hick'ry," and Huck |
| worlds' immorality and filthiness. Even his | | | | desires to live that way no more. He decides |
| looks with "long and tangled and greasy hair | | | | to escape with a slave Jim, who will become a |
| and rags for clothes" he reminds Huck of his | | | | carrying father for Huck during their flee |
| poverty. Pap behaves in a very cruel way with | | | | down the river. On their way in the episode |
| Huck, the boy is often beaten up and | | | | described in chapter 9, when they come upon |
| physically abused. Not only physical | | | | the floating frame-house, they discover a |
| disturbance is an issue between father and | | | | dead man among the various items. After Jim |
| son here, Pap is also against Huck's | | | | looks over the body, he tells Huck to come in |
| education. He resents Huck's ability to read | | | | the house, but "doan' look at his |
| and write, and be emerged in religious | | | | face-because it's too gashly." Jim's gesture |
| studies. The world of Widow Douglas, who | | | | here is similar to that of a protective |
| agreed to take care of Huck, in Pap's sick | | | | parent. In Chapter the Last, Jim explains |
| mind, is a dangerous world. He forces Huck to | | | | that the dead man aboard the house was Pap, |
| stop his education thus to return to his | | | | and Huck realizes that Pap will not bother or |
| roots as Pap puts it. He wants his son to | | | | abuse him ever again. For a young boy to have |
| solely belong to himself as a thing not a | | | | such cruel, as it may seem, toward his dead |
| human being, to do only what he orders him. | | | | father is not a common thing. They are |
| He even keeps him in the forest in the cabin | | | | totally justified, though, because of the way |
| away from the outside world and people who | | | | Pap treated Huck throughout his childhood, |
| were willing to help, he is locked there like | | | | because of the absence of love and care which |
| an animal. | | | | Pap never showed. Pap was like a heavy weight |
| | | | which Huck had to carry everywhere on his |
| Under such abusive eye of Pap, Huck attempts | | | | small feeble body, but now the weight was |
| to romanticize his life free from the | | | | gone forever and Huck could breathe without |
| intrusions of a judgmental society and | | | | fearing of being slapped for it. Although |
| outside civilization. Away from the enforced | | | | Huck has a biological father during almost |
| rules of school and town, Huck is "free" to | | | | the whole novel, a reader is convinced that |
| exist according to Pap's rules, which are | | | | Jim is the one who plays that role much |
| liquor and theft. In reality of Huck's | | | | better that Pap. After he tells Huck about |
| existence under Pap, is one where the | | | | his father's dead body, he helps Huck to come |
| presence of Pap's fist and racism saturate | | | | to a right decision on freeing Jim. By doing |
| all of Huck's life -where Huck is abused and | | | | such he as if inherits his newly found |
| subject to the poison Pap spills onto the | | | | father's kindness and worthy qualities that |
| whole society. Pap is criticizing society for | | | | his real father never had. This |
| trying to take away his son, but at the same | | | | transformation in Huck's mind and life as a |
| time does nothing to protect Huck, he only | | | | whole declares his rebirth. He is a new |
| makes him suffer and feel unwelcome in this | | | | person with new moral views and new family. |