Jina K.
English 3 / Period 2
Final Draft
April 15, 2010
Where is Your Home?
Where is your home? Is it in the woods? Is it in the suburbs? Is it on the
river? Is it in the city with the bright lights? The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by
Mark Twain tells us about what home provides for Huck. In many ways it provides
safety. It also provides a place to act on beliefs and customs and it also comforts him.
What does a home provide for you? The river and boat is associated to the river
symbolize a home for Huck.
For instance, a home should provide safety. When I get into an argument
with my parents I go to my room to escape their voices, anger, and whatever
punishment they might throw at me. When I’m on the run from a crazy man who
wants to hurt me, I can run to my house and lock all the doors. A home provides
safety from any climate associated troubles. I would hate to get soaked by the rain,
then die because I couldn’t get my body to warm back up. In the book Huck says,
“living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly but before
the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that
was a rest to me I like the old ways best.” ( Twain 15.) Huck is on the run for a lot of
the time in the book. A lot of the time, Huck escapes from trouble by hiding on his
boat . This boat on the river is his home. It helps him escape away from all the angry
people in the world and what ever punishment they want to give him. “The Widow
Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was
rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent
the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I
got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But
Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I
might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.”
(Twain 1.) It also helps him run away from two crazy men named Duke and
Dauphin who wants get on the boat to save their life. This is like an predator
coming into your house. “Old man,” said the young one, “I reckon we might doubleteam it together; what do you think?” I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and here
am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold world,
ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the companionship of felons on a raft!"
(Twain 121/122.) I think that what happened with Duke and Dauphin is a great
example of what happens when someone fails to keep their home safe. Without his
boat, Huck is in a sense,
Also, home provides a place to act on customs and beliefs. Do you have any
traditions and beliefs you follow? In the book Huck believed in the ways of people at
this time period. That White colored men, were greater then blacks, and if a black
man were out of his/her place you would turn them in. Huck is challenged to break
his beliefs and customs when he is faced the choice to be on the same boat with Jim,
his former slave. While Huck and Jim are on the raft, Huck asks Jim what he would
do when he goes into the free states. Jim said he wanted to save up money and never
spend a single cent and when he had enough, he would buy his wife and children. If
they wouldn’t sell them, he would go to the abolitionist to go and steal them. “It
most froze me to hear such a talk he wouldn’t ever dared to talk such talk in his life
before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about
free. It was according to the old saying give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell.
Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking here was this nigger which I had a
good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal
his children- children that belong to man and I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t
ever done me no harm. I was sorry to hear Jim say that it was such a lowering of
him. My conscience got to stirring me up hotter then ever until at last it says to it,
“let up on me- It ain’t to late yet. I’ll paddle ashore at the first light and tell.” (Twain
88.) Huck however, acts on this beliefs “well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it- I
can’t get out of it. Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and
they stopped and I stopped.” (Twain 89) Huck doesn’t turn in Jim because he didn’t
believe it was right. The river provided a place for Huck to act on his beliefs and it
also provided somewhere for him to rethink his beliefs.
Finally a home provides comfort. My home provides me with a place to be
comfortable. I sing, I dance, I do what I feel like doing. I can be myself when I’m at
home because I’m comfortable. When I come home from school I take off my shoes
and sit how ever I want and it comforts me to lay down and sleep where ever I am.
In the book the raft shows us a home in Huck’s view. “I hadn’t had a bite to eat since
yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and pork and
cabbage and greens—there ain’t nothing in the world so good when it’s cooked
right—and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a good time. . . .We said there
warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and
smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.”
(Twain 116.) I don’t know what you dream about or what you even think about
though out the day, but a setting of being comforted gives you a relaxed feeling and
you may even look at the stars like Huck and Jim. "It's lovely to live on a raft. We had
the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look
up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened."
(Twain 118 .) The boat provided Huck and Jim with comfort.
In conclusion, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain tells us
about what a home provides for Huck. In many ways it provides safety. It also
provides a place to act on beliefs and customs and it also comforts him. What does a
home provide for you? The river and things associating to the river symbolizes a
home for Huck. Does your home provide all the things you need to live? If you don’t
you better figure it out and thank your house.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York, New York: A Division
of Random House, Inc., 1884.