Honors Novel #1

Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures—national, regional, ethnic, religious, and/or institutional. Such collisions can call a character's sense of identity into question.

In the story of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “Huck,” as author Mark Twain calls him, is an uneducated orphan with a $6000+ trust fund in the 19th century. However, he is just a young boy, living under a religious widow's household. The widow tries to teach Huck about religion and make him pray, but the way he sees it is mere grumbling to a person who isn't there. His father was/is an abusive drunk and Huck feared him, possibly growing up not knowing how family members should treat each other.

This character, "Pap,” is somewhat an influence to Huck's character. To him, Huck is seen as a failure because he “thinks he's better than [his father]” by getting an education. Huck is the first in his family to get a formal education, making him different from his relatives.

In the beginning, Jim is the family slave and Huck doesn't care to call him anything more than that. However, once Jim escapes the fate of being sold for $800 to a New Orleans family and runs away with Huck, they become more acquaintenced. This is a change in character for Huck, since he was raised as a white boy, not to mingle with African Americans, but him and Jim become friends.

Huck is a boy inbetween colliding cultures: The culture of society, where he is seen as a failure as an undereducated white orphan; The culture of his family life, where he is unsure how to feel about family members since his mother is long gone and his father an abusive drunk; and the culture in which he, a young curious boy, lives in. This last culture includes his strange friendships for an 18th century era, and how he carries himself as a boy who has the chance to be educated and "saved by God."