Huck Finn Chapter 18-17 Summary

As a runaway slave accompanying a white boy, Jim cannot expect what Huck could do to him; Huck could turn him in or leave him by himself. Jim also had the opportunity to leave Huck, but having all his faith and trust in Huck, Jim decides to stay, hoping Huck was not lost in the fog. After Jim’s lecture, Huck starts to feel guilty, saying, “It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his feet to get him to take it back”

This young boy’s name is Huckleberry Finn, and he is brave and yearning for adventure. He begins the story with a newly acquired fortune, but goes back to living in rags and in a barrel. Huckleberry is convinced by his best friend, Tom Sawyer, to go back to living with “The Widow” so that he can join Tom’s newly created band of robbers. The Widow Douglas is a woman who takes Huckleberry as her son and does her best to “sivilize” him: teaching him how to behave and forcing him to go to school. Huckleberry slips off and joins “The Tom Sawyer Gang” and pretends to rob people for about a month before he resigns. All this time, Huckleberry is getting used to living with the widow, even admitting that he likes it a little bit. Then, one day, his father shows up, demanding his fortune and eventually taking him to his log cabin, hidden in the woods. There Huck hunts and fishes, but is not permitted to leave. Eventually, “pap got too handy with his hick’ry” so Huck escapes down the river when his father is drunk. Huck hides on Jackson’s Island and meets Jim, The Widow’s slave. Huck learns that Jim had run away from The Widow and so they decide to help each other out. But when Huck learns of a plan to search the island, they leave down the river. Several days later, they almost run into some robbers on a wrecked steamboat and manage to escape with their loot. When Huck and Jim land on the bank

The primary relationships of Huck with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson as well as Huck with Pap and Huck with Jim are established. Throughout the novel, Huck takes on different identities to further his attempts at freedom. In this section three of these identities are seen. One is Huck, the dead boy when he “kills” himself in order to cover his escape from Pap at his cabin and the other is Sarah Mary Williams whom he disguised himself as when he attempted to get information and later George Peters emerges when Sarah is discovered to be a boy.

In the beginning Huck never really knew what a true friend was, and then he went on a journey with Jim, a runaway slave. For a while, Huck has thoughts about turning in Jim and having him sent back to Miss Watson. However, he always remembers how nice Jim is to him. Huck said that he would not tell anyone that Jim had runaway and in return Jim was willing to protect and help Huck. Jim would even give up his sleep just because he wanted to let Huck continue to sleep. That was not the only thing Jim did for Huck either. When the house floated by and the two saw a body laying inside it dead, Jim went in to see what was in the house and found that it was Huck's father that was dead. Jim covered the body so Huck did not realize that his father had been killed. Through just these two actions made by Jim, Huck learns one of the most valuable life lessons: true friendship.

He walks along the garden and sees someone’s tracks on the snow. When examining the tracks, Huck saw that it was a cross made out of nails, to keep off the devil. This startled Huck, so he left. He then went to Judge Thatcher, where the judge wants to give him his interest. Huck refuses and tells the judge to keep all of it. Judge Thatcher is surprised, but ultimately he accepts.

He then ends up in the Grangerfords household, they ask him abounch of questions seeing if he is a Shepherdson. The grangerfords realize that he is not a Sheperson and welcome him into their home. Huck befriends the Grangerfords son named Buck, he tells Huck that they have had a fued with the Shephersons for a long time. One day a battle broke out between the two families because a grangerford daughter and Shperhson son ran away together. Mr Grangerford and his two brothers were gunned down, and buck and his brother were being shot at. Huck watches buck and a boy be ambushed by shepherdsons on top of a tree. Huck is emotionally hurt by bucks death, They were becoming really good friends and he had to watch him be killed. Additionally, this event is significant because Huck sees how the Grangerfords treated him so well and they didn’t deserve the death that came to them. When Huck see Bucks body in the river he has to cover it up because it is the least he could do for him after all buck did for him. At this oint I believe Huck thinks their journey cant get much worse than it already is, he has witnessed death and disappointment too

The two men live a dangerous life that any moment, they could be captured, especially Jim. One of the many times that Huck could have told on Jim, was when some men approached him looking for five black men run off that night. Instead of letting the men know that he have one black man with him, Huck told them that it is a white man with him. Despite saying that, the men still want to make sure. So, Huck has to make excuses as to not let

Huck can’t bear to see this sight, so he goes to comfort her. She tells him that she didn’t want the slave's family to be separated, this occurrence had spoiled her moving to England. Huck blurts out that they will be seeing each other again, Mary jane wants him to explain. He realizes that he told too much information to Mary Jane, so he thinks it over. His decision is to tell Mary Jane the entire truth. So he did.

One heroic characteristic of Huck is his cleverness. As young boy, he fakes his own death to escape from his father. To fool everyone, Huck smartly kills a pig and spreads its blood around Pap’s cabin in an effort to make it appear as though robbers had murdered him. This scheme affords Huck all the time he needs to make his getaway and makes everyone think that he’s dead. Huck Finn cleverly makes up stories to get himself out of trouble. For example, when a couple of men insist on checking out Huck’s raft, he pretends as though his father is sick with smallpox to keep the men from getting too close. At the Grangerford’s, Huck forgets his false name and tricks Buck Grangerford into telling him. “I bet you can’t spell my name” (Twain 75). Buck accepts the dare and spells out what Huck said was his name. Huck is not only cunning, but also faithful to his friends.

Following Huck’s escape from his father’s cabin, Huck escapes with Jim, rafting the Mississippi while he becomes his older self who helps others, a sharp contrast to the kidnapped Huck who only aided himself. When Huck encounters Judith Loftus, he lies, telling her that he is a girl by the name of Sarah Mary Williams, and later that he is a runaway apprentice called George Peters (69). Huck continues lying for himself, reflecting the depth of Huck’s descent while with his father; however, the lie also helps Jim, so Huck displays a tiny amount of selflessness. Farther down the river, Huck lies to several men and tells them that Jim is a white man who has smallpox (101). By this point in the story, Huck begins lying to help others such as Jim, not just himself. He slowly loses the overwhelming desire to protect only himself that he developed while with his father. Huck

Later one of the slaves leads huck to get water moccasins an then he find Jim an Jim

When the King goes to feel out one of the towns to see if the people of that particular town has heard of the fraud of a show that he and the Duke had been putting on Huck is planning his and Jim’s escape. Huck at this point knows that the King is actually going into the town to look for more people’s houses to rob. The Duke is visibly agitated for some reason and Huck senses it. When Huck and the Duke go into the town to look for the King he is obviously drunk. Huck runs as soon as he sees an opportunity to lose the King and the Duke. Huck thinks he and Jim are finally free only to find that Jim is gone. When Huck realizes Jim is gone and he cannot find him he actually cries. We see the emotional attachment and bond that Jim has formed with Jim. When Huck comes across a young boy who tells him of how a runaway slave was caught and he learns that he was caught because the Duke and the King tricked them. Following this encounter Huck is upset. The first reason he seems upset is because he was turned in by the hands of people he thought he was helping but the most ironic reason for his anger

After a long raft-ride, Huck and Jim are finally about to reach Cairo, which on their arrival would make Jim free. With the smell of freedom, Jim rambles on about how he would buy his wife and then steal his children. This sets off a spark in Huck, igniting his conscience and making him very uneasy. Huck couldn't believe that Jim would steal property from a man that hadn't done him any harm. Huck then begins feeling guilty about helping Jim escape from Miss Watson, since she had never done anything to him and didn't deserve for Jim to be stolen from her. At his departure for the town, on a mission to turn Jim in, Jim leaves Huck with these words. " Pooty soon I'll be a shout'n' for joy, en I'll say say, it's all on accounts o' Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it hadn't it ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck; you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had; en you's de only fren' ole Jim's got now". (pg.86-87) Hearing these words, Huck realizes how much Jim's friendship means to him and decides not to turn in Jim. Finally, the last test of Huck's conscience comes when he finds out that the "king" and the "duke" have sold Jim. Huck gets to thinking about how wrong he was to help Jim escape, and decides he should write a letter to Miss Watson. He then changes his mind, seeing that Jim would be worse off as a runaway slave because he would be treated horribly, and Huck

Huck is caught between Jim’s behavior and his own conscience as he is faced with the struggle of whether or not to turn in his friend, who is actually a run away slave, in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry

Huck narrates about his personality which in turn directly gives the reader a look at his