Coming of Age: The Childhood of Huckleberry Fin

There’s one thing you should understand about the character, Huckleberry Fin. He acts like your typical kid. When you were a child, don’t you remember your parents bossing you around, being grounded for doing bad stuff, or even being embarrassed by your elders? Well, if you do, you probably can relate to Huck heavily and even differ from him at the same time. Well, it matters who you are.

            Huckleberry Fin is a boy who lives in a childhood of racism and discrimination. But there are things in his childhood life that are typical. For example, Huck gets bossed around a lot from Miss Watson and he deals with a lot of bickering and nagging from his elders. Huckleberry Fin is always being bugged around like the underpowered pawn he’s treated as. You relate to him because some time in our childhood life, we’ve been nagged and bugged by our parents. Some kids even been grounded and punished. Many children try to live a life that’s not so dependent on their parents and some try to act less independent. Like spending most of your time with your elders than kids around your age.

 When it comes to Huckleberry, he’s actually both independent and dependent. After his father died, Huckleberry lives his life as a recluse. In my opinion, it’s strange to hear that. In the beginning of the book, you picture Huckleberry Fin being dependent towards adults and being bugged around. Miss Watson, the tolerable slim old maid, treats Huckleberry like a computer program. “Don’t put your feet up there… don’t scrunch up like that… don’t gap and stretch like that… sit up straight, Huckleberry! Why don’t you try to behave?” says Miss Watson, (chapter one, page six). Now, that is typical nagging behavior from adults! (No offence to adults). With evidence shown, Huckleberry’s childhood life was filled with his elders bossing him around. You can easily relate to Huckleberry’s childhood life because your parents nagging you around is very predictable.

            Although some may relate to Huckleberry Fin when it comes to childhood, but in some circumstances, you differ to Huck. He’s raised my a drunken racist father and it’s painful to Huckleberry. He needs to put up with so much of his father taunting African-Americans and nigger calling. Even though the book takes place during slavery, it was a bold choice for Mark Twain to show how slave owners are reminded by. Ignorant, racist, idiotic people who has no moral value whatsoever. You can differ from Huckleberry in this situation because in the year we live in, 2011, there is not much kids in the United States who live with extremely bad-mouthing, racist families. There might be some, but not as much as a human being would expect. Huckleberry’s childhood lives around people of hatred that’s against others with different race, especially African-Americans. But the question is: Is Huckleberry a racist person? No, he’s not. While on his adventure after his father’s death, he finds a run-away slave, Jim. Jim escaped from his slave owner the same day Huckleberry’s father died and that made people suspicious. When confederate men asked Huckleberry about his father’s death and the run-away slave, he didn’t want to confess that Jim was traveling with him the entire time. He doesn’t want him to get in trouble. But if Huck told, it would probably be more than trouble for Jim, he would be lynched! And Huck would get into a lot of trouble too. During the time when slavery was active, helping a slave escape would be a huge risk. Even though Huck says nigger when talking about an African-American, it doesn’t exactly make him racist. You would expect for him to be racist because it’s a really powerful and shocking word to say. But remember that he’s a young child. Everyone else said nigger, especially his elders that he had to look up to. That’s the word Huck gets used to and learns when talking about blacks. It’s like young children being raised by parents that have heavy Russian accents, for example. There’s a big chance that the child will also have a Russian accent as well, because it’s what he/she is used to when being talked to. Therefore, Huckleberry’s childhood was filled with mockery and racism, but it didn’t make him racist pig.

            In conclusion, many people can relate to Huckleberry’s childhood, but differ from it at the same time. You relate to it because Huckleberry dealt with a lot of bugging, nagging, and bossing around from elders. Just like how many kids were bossed around by their parents. You may differ from his childhood because Huckleberry lived with elders who were racist and bitter. Today, racism and pure discrimination in America is still mildly active. But many parents I know of, take the idea of racism as bad as a sin and try to teach their children to avoid it. This all relates to coming of age because connecting to Huckleberry’s childhood is interesting. It’s a huge variety of children dealing with typical parent behavior, that’s usually normal. And shocking conflicts that a young child needs to face. Mark Twain focused on the moral value of racism and takes an interesting approach on childhood life. The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin proves that two important issues can be easily relatable. They both blend in perfectly.