The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Characters
July 29, 2024
Whether you’ve just started the book or need to review, this article will provide a list of the major and minor characters in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. As I’ve written elsewhere (see links below), Huck Finn is markedly different from the earlier, more childish Tom Sawyer. Ultimately, Huck Finn is about an America wrestling with the shame of slavery. Published in 1884, Twain’s novel dramatizes the moral development of Huck as he begins to understand how his culture has shaped his views.
Any quotes are from Project Gutenberg’s searchable The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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Major Characters – Huck, Jim and Tom
Huckleberry Finn
Unlike his childish literary predecessor, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn is a boy shaped by violence and abuse. When we first meet him, he tells us about the $6000 that he found with Tom Sawyer. A few chapters later, Huck “sells” his fortune to Judge Thatcher so his alcoholic, abusive father can’t legally get his hands on it.
When Huck’s father kidnaps him (to keep him out of school and to advance his own custodial claims), Huck isn’t too upset. In many ways, he prefers his father’s lifestyle – no school, no church, no bathing. However, when his father’s drunken abuse gets worse, Huck stages his own death and sets off down the Mississippi River.
Huck happens to meet up with Jim, a man who is enslaved to Miss Watson. They decide to travel down the river together – Huck away from his dad and Jim away from slavery. As Huck goes down the river and away from his family, he is able to develop his own opinion about the issue of slavery. This is the central moral dilemma of the novel.
Huckleberry Finn Characters (Continued)
When the novel begins, Huck hasn’t thought much about the moral implications of slavery. Coming from a culture where people can be bought and sold, slavery is simply a fact of life for Huck. His time on the raft with Jim changes him. For the first time, Huck begins to see Jim as a person rather than as a piece of property.
This tension comes to a head when Jim is recaptured south of Cairo, Illinois. Huck’s first thought is to contact Miss Watson and notify her that her property has been confiscated. While contacting Miss Watson would “free” Jim from his current situation, it would likely result in him being sold away from his wife and kids. Now that Huck has seen Jim’s love for his children, he can’t blithely take this action.
I’ve discussed the moment of Huck’s decision in other places, but it’s worth reviewing. Huck writes the note to Miss Watson and then pauses to consider the ramifications of this act. He understands how momentous this moment is. We read, “I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it.” On the one hand, Huck now knows Jim as a person with thoughts and feelings. On the other hand, Huck wrestles with every message his culture has ever given him about slavery. He genuinely believes that freeing Jim might result in eternal damnation.
Huckleberry Finn Characters (Continued)
With this in mind, Huck’s declaration – “‘All right, then, I’ll GO to hell’” is particularly powerful. However naive Huck’s theology, he has chosen to go against every religious and cultural message his culture has given him. Though Huck is undoubtedly a product of his time and place, ultimately, he takes a stand for what he believes.
With this moment of moral development in mind, Huck’s subsequent “adventures” with Tom Sawyer are particularly disappointing. Recall that Jim has ended up at the house of Tom Sawyer’s Aunt Polly. When Huck arrives to try to free Jim, Aunt Polly mistakes him for Tom and welcomes him. Huck manages to talk to Tom before the latter arrives and they scheme to help Jim escape. The thing is, Miss Watson died a few months previous and freed Jim in her will. In the weeks it takes to “free” Jim, he could have left at any time.
Jim
Jim is the man enslaved to Miss Watson. When he hears that Miss Watson might sell him down to New Orleans, he flees. He travels to Jackson’s Island where he meets Huckleberry Finn. As both of them are on the run, they decide to travel together. While Huck doesn’t really care where he’s going – as long as it’s away from his father – Jim has a very specific goal. Jim is traveling toward Cairo, Illinois, where the Mississippi River meets the Ohio River. As the Ohio River is the dividing line between the slave and the free states, reaching Cairo means Jim is a free man.
However kind Huck is to him while on the raft, Jim is always in a precarious position. Because he’s on the run, he can never go ashore. (When Huck, the king and the duke are ashore, Jim is either tied up or, later, dressed as a “sick Arab.”) This precarity means that Jim’s motives are always ambivalent. There’s no doubt that Jim is very kind to Huck – at the same time, he has to be – a single word from Huck would send Jim back into slavery.
Huckleberry Finn Characters (Continued)
The most touching moment of Jim’s development as a character occurs when we learn about his family in chapter twenty-three. We find out that he has two kids – Elizabeth and Johnny. Jim tells Huck that when his daughter was one, she caught scarlet fever, which resulted in her going deaf. Before Jim realized she had gone deaf, he hit her because she refused to do what he asked.
Though Jim does have moments where he becomes a more fully-fleshed out character, his primary function is to prompt Huck’s moral awakening. As Huck hears Jim’s stories about his family, he remarks, “I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n.” He continues, “It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so.” Wherever interior life Jim has, he exists primarily for Huck’s development.
Huckleberry Finn Characters (Continued)
After Jim and Huck pass by Cairo, Jim’s role in the text wanes. He is turned in by the king and re-enslaved. After Tom Sawyer shows up and leads a bumblingly complicated “rescue” of Jim, we find out that Miss Watson has died and freed Jim in her will. In effect, the most poignant moral quandary of the text is rendered moot. Add to this the fact that Jim’s wife and children are still enslaved. While Twain was willing to have Huck change his mind about slavery, he couldn’t quite figure out how to resolve Jim’s own story. (I recommend Toni Morrison’s Beloved if you want to hear a moving story from the perspective of formerly enslaved people.)
Tom Sawyer
Tom is present from the start of The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn. Huck begins his story by saying, “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” When Huck tires of the civilizing efforts of the widow Douglas, he briefly joins Tom Sawyer’s band of robbers. However, Huck quickly becomes disillusioned with Sawyer’s shenanigans, realizing that Tom has no interest in the real world.
As if on cue, Tom disappears from the story once Huck realizes he’s a liar. He only reappears in chapter thirty-two after Jim is recaptured. Huck has tracked Jim to the Phelps’s farm and is welcomed into the house by “Aunt Polly.” It turns out that Aunt Polly thinks Huck is Tom Sawyer, who was due to arrive that very day.
When the real Tom arrives, he plays along and pretends to be his brother, Sid. Huck is surprised when Tom agrees to help him free Jim. However, it turns out that Miss Watson has died and freed Jim in her will. In essence, Tom stages an elaborate “escape” (which might have resulted in someone getting lynched) for his own amusement. As I’ve written elsewhere, Tom’s naive, consequenceless engagement with the world is antithetical to Huck’s.
Minor Characters
Pap Finn
Pap Finn is Huck’s alcoholic, abusive father. He appears early in the novel and tries to get his hands on Huck’s money (and keep him out of school). When his efforts fail, he kidnaps Huck and takes him to an isolated cottage, where his drunken abuse escalates. After Huck fakes his own death, Pap gets involved with some shady characters and gets shot. Unbeknownst to Huck, Pap’s body is in the house that Huck and Jim find floating down the river.
Judge Thatcher
Judge Thatcher is the local judge in charge of Huck’s money. When Huck finds out that his father is back in town, he “sells” his fortune to Judge Thatcher for safe keeping. Along with the widow Douglas, Judge Thatcher tries to remove Huck from his father’s custody.
Widow Douglas and Miss Watson
These are the two wealthy sisters who are in charge of “civilizing” Huck. While both are kind to Huck, as slave owners, they represent the hypocrisy of the civilized world.
Huckleberry Finn Characters (Continued)
The King and the Duke
These are the two con men that Huck and Jim pick up on their way down the river. As the novel progresses, their schemes become more cruel. Ultimately, they betray Jim for $40. The last time we see them, they’ve been tarred and feathered by an angry mob.
The Grangerfords and the Shephardsons
When Huck and Jim’s raft is hit by a riverboat, Huck swims to shore and is taken in by the Grangerfords. As he becomes closer to their 13-year-old son, Buck, Huck learns that the family is in a multi-generational feud with the Shephardson family. When it’s revealed that one of the Grangerford daughters has eloped with a Shephardson boy, the feud escalates. Buck is shot and Huck is scarred by the violence.
The Wilks Family
With his eyes out for possible cons, the king happens upon a gentleman who tells him about a rich man (Peter Wilks) who has died and left his fortune to his (English) brothers. The king pumps him for details and gets enough information to impersonate the brothers. Eventually, Huck tells one of the man’s daughters about the scheme. The King and the Duke barely escape.
Huckleberry Finn Characters (Continued)
Aunt Polly
When the king betrays Jim, the latter ends up in a shed at the Phelps’ farm. The Phelps turn out to be Tom Sawyer’s aunt and uncle. Aunt Polly mistakes Huck for Tom Sawyer and Tom Sawyer for Sid Sawyer. While Tom agrees to help Jim escape, we eventually find out that Jim was freed in Miss Watson’s will.
Huckleberry Finn Characters – Wrapping Up
Understood as a thoroughly American bildungsroman, the characters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn often represent some aspect of America that Huck is fleeing. Whether the scheming of the King and the Duke or the generational violence of the Grangerfords and the Shephardsons, Huck observes (and recoils) from the crass reality of America. As Huck says, “There wern’t no home life a raft.”
If you’ve found this article useful or interesting, you can also check out my summaries and analyses of 1984, The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, The Crucible, Beloved, and Brave New World.
