Analysis of Lies in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essay Example

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, is a story about a rowdy teenager named Huckleberry Finn. Lying occurs more than frequently in the novel, which is what Huck Finn does best. However, not all the lying that is told is all bad. Some of the lies told by Huck is to save his one of his dearest friends, Jim, who is a run away slave, while running away for freedom upstream the Missisippi River. Jim ran away because his owner, Miss Watson, who also adopted Huck, was going to sell him down south for a price she could just simply not resist. Miss Watson was trying to civilize Huck, but it led to Huck feeling uncomfortable because he was not used to it. Huck’s mother died when he was very young, and his father was in and out of the picture. When Huck’s father returned, he was a drunkard, oftentimes abusing, hurting and in some instances, he would lock up Huck from his home. 

Due to Huck’s fathers behavior, he decided to fake his own death. Huck killed a wild pig and ransacked the house while his father was out drinking. Using the blood from the pig, it looked like Huck had been severely hurt. After running away from the house, Huck finds driftwood that could be used as a raft on the river. Huck grabs all of his belongings and starts riding upstream till he reaches Jackson’s Island, about two and half miles from home. Huck figures no one is on the island with him because nobody ever goes to Jackson’s Island. That was until he heard a noise, turned around and there was a man. Both the man and Huck screamed, until they realized they knew each other. It was Jim! Jim thought Huck was dead, and he went on to tell Huck how everyone thought he killed him. Jim told Huck about Miss Watson wanting to sell Jim down south, so both of them made a plan to escape to freedom in Cairo, Illinois, in hopes to buy his freedom and his family into freedom. 

Many times while on their way to freedom, Huck had to cover Jim and lie about his identity or even sometimes his presence. In one scene, Huck asks some men if they knew how close Cairo was from their location. The men go on to tell Huck that Cairo is still a 40 mile trip. They notice that Huck is all by himself and ask them where his parents are. Huck does what he does best, lies his way out of it. He explains to the men that his parents are sick and they are resting with leprosy. The men give Huck $20 and tell him to buy something to heal his parents.

Huck and Jim ran into two people claiming to be the king of England and a duke. They promised they wouldn’t capture Jim, only if none of them said they were fakes. Everywhere they went, they told everyone that they were indeed royalty of England. While they were getting on a boat, the “king” told a crew member that they were England royalty. The crew mate asked them how their brother was because he heard that he had died. The king tried to act sad and not surprised, but he asked him if he knew where the funeral was. So surely enough, they ended up talking at the funeral. Jim had gotten arrested. The daughters of the deceased uncle's inheritance money was supposed to go to the children. But when the king and duke heard about money, they thought about it, and decided they would steal it. A doctor in the crowd called the king and duke fakes, but there was no evidence that they were fake. The doctor asked the people who had buried the uncle if he had a tattoo on his chest. The king said he did not have a tattoo. The people who buried him didn’t know, so the decision was they would unbury him and see. While everyone was busy unburying the casket, Huck went out and freed Jim from jail and snuck away. 

At the end of the novel, Jim becomes a free man, but it never says if the family ever got freed. Huck gets readopted by Aunt Sally, to try to once again get civilized. While we know Huck truly will never feel comfortable living like this, he surely won’t be able to fit in at school.