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Rachel Broussard
Ms. Guillory
English III Honors
3 March 2011
The Controversy Over the Ending
The war has been waging for years. The object of the fight: the controversial ending of
Mark Twain’s classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There are two opposing sides to this
fight. There are the critics who wave a red flag at every ridiculous plot twist and berate Twain
for what, in their eyes, is Twain’s biggest mistake of all: the degradation of the slave character
Jim. They point to “flimsy devices of plot, the discordant farcical tone, and the disintegration of
the major characters” (Marx 296) as reasons for the ending’s failure. In the opposing camp are
the firm and loyal supporters of Twain. They champion his artistic authority and his sensitivity.
They assert that the final chapters are “in keeping with the earlier part of the book” (Graff 279);
therefore, they are just as valuable. I find myself firmly planted in the second camp. I admit the
last few chapters of Huckleberry Finn seem out of place in comparison with the rest of the novel.
However, the final chapters do recall the mood created in the beginning of the novel, and it is
this mood combined with Twain’s “betrayal” of Jim in the end of the novel that is crucial to
Twain’s final and most important point. Even though his story takes place in the pre-Civil War
South, Twain uses the final chapters as a critique on post-Civil War society. With the final
chapters of Huckleberry Finn, Twain is showing that even if black men are legally equal, there
will be no hope of progress for the black man in America until drastic changes are made to
society.
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The controversy surrounding the ending of Huckleberry Finn is the result of the three
points Professor Leo Marx so aptly summarized above: the imposed happy ending, the story’s
return to the mood found in the beginning of the novel, and Twain’s essential betrayal of Jim.
According to critics of the ending, it is these points that “jeopardize the significance of the entire
novel” (Marx 292) and leave so many readers “uneasy” (Marx 292). Marx is not alone in his
belief. What alarms so many readers is that in the final chapters, Huck slips back into his old
ways, as does Twain. With Huck’s arrival at the Phelps’s Farm, a stark contrast is created
between the end of the novel and the first three quarters. The novel suddenly returns to the
whimsical feeling found in the first few chapters before Huck’s father returns. Before he
embarks on his journey down river, Huck is a mischievous boy with a slightly crooked moral
compass. He does not hesitate to play practical jokes that may cause great harm to others, as
shown by the incident with Jim and the snake. While he never loses his spark, his journey down
river does help him to understand better life’s growing complexities. Huck’s maturation is best
depicted by the growth of his friendship with Jim and the inner conflict he faces at the thought of
having to turn Jim in. However, when Huck arrives at the Phelps’s farm and is reunited with his
friend Tom, it is like everything he accomplished on his journey is lost. Tom coerces Huck into a
complex and unnecessary sche me to free Jim, a scheme in which “Jim’s yearning for freedom, is
made the object of nonsense” (Marx 295). Readers truly begin to sense Twain’s departure from
the earlier parts of the novel when reading the detailed description of Tom’s pointless plan.
Nearly seven chapters are dedicated to this scheme. As Graff so aptly writes, “Many readers
have felt [the final chapters] constitute an anticlimactic letdown, even a betrayal, in which Twain
lapses into trivial slapstick comedy and thus loses sight of the heroic moral theme he has
developed up to this point – Jim’s struggle for freedom from slavery” (Graff 279). It is true that
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the events of the final chapters distract from what was originally Huck’s main objective, freeing
Jim. Not only that, but they also transform Huck. As Marx writes, “[Huck] becomes Tom’s
helpless accomplice, submissive and gullible” (Marx 296), much like the boy who is so eager
and ready to join Tom’s band of robbers at the start of the novel. However, Tom’s harebrained
scheme hardly matters once it is revealed that Jim has been a freed man all along. Then it is
revealed that Huck’s father is dead, freeing Huck as well. In one chapter, Twain is able to tie up
all the loose ends and provide what seems like a happy ending; however, there is a dark side to
this happy ending, and many critics don’t have to look far to find it.
Critics of the ending see past the silly façade placed over the story by Tom and his
shenanigans and see something much more disturbing: the emasculation and degradatio n of Jim.
Marx writes, “On the raft [Jim] was an individual… In the closing episode, however, we lose
sight of Jim in the maze of farcical invention” (Marx 296). Throughout their time at the Phelps’s
farm, Jim seems to become more enslaved than ever. He calmly goes along with Tom’s
ridiculous plan for his escape, and when things fall apart, his loyalty to Huck and Tom compels
him to return to a place that means certain capture and enslavement. Huck describes Jim’s
submissive return, “Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to know me, and they took him to
the same cabin… and chained him again” (Twain 214). Jim “never said nothing” throughout his
capture because he knows his word means nothing in white society. Marx observes, “He has
been made over in the image of a flat stereotype: the submissive stage-Negro” (Marx 296), a fact
that is made painfully clear by his appearance in a calico dress at the end of the novel.
Two supporters of Twain, Shelley Fisher Fishkin and T.S. Eliot, make compelling
argument s in support of Twain that attempt to debunk two of the points critics find to be most
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troubling. Through proper analysis of Twain’s writings as well as his personal life, Fishkin
reveals that Twain is far from racist, while Eliot reveals the genius behind Twain’s structure.
Fishkin reviews Twain’s close personal ties to African Americans and relates the instance
when Twain paid completely for the education of one young black man, a generous deed a racist
bigot would never do. She also cites several of Twain’s non-fiction publications such as “The
United States of Lyncherdom” and his rewrite of the “Declaration of Independence,” which he
specially edited to display rightfully the injustice the African people have suffered in America, to
disprove any accusations of Twain being a racist. She asserts that any stereotypical or racist
caricatures found in Twain’s writings are not reflections of Twain’s personal beliefs, but, rather,
Twain’s attempt to represent Southern society as realistically as possible.
T.S. Eliot comes to Twain’s aid in support of his style and form in Huckleberry Finn.
Eliot writes, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the only one of Mark Twain’s various
books which can be called a masterpiece…it is the only one in which his genius is completely
realized…” (Eliot 287). Eliot says this genius lies in the character Huck and the book’s setting:
the mighty Mississippi River. He recognizes that some readers “deplore the fact that the story
descends to the level of Tom Sawyer from the moment that Tom re-appears” (Eliot 288);
however, Eliot believes “it is right that the mood of the end of the book should bring us back to
that of the beginning” (Eliot 289), for in his eyes, “neither a tragic nor a happy ending would be
suitable” (289). Despite the genius he sees in the final chapters, Eliot believes that Twain’s
return to his previous tone might be an “unconscious art” (289). I say that this return was
completely conscious on Twain’s part and is an essential point in proving his greatest critique, a
satire of Southern society.
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Marx writes, “To take seriously what happens at the Phelps farm is to take lightly the entire
downstream journey” (Marx 292), but I say it is the serious interpretation of the Phelps farm
scene that makes Huck and Jim’s journey so important. Judging by Twain’s previous writings,
any seemingly unconscious plot twist was really done with wit and purpose. Twain does not
become lazy with his writing at the end of Huckleberry Finn, and he is not simply falling into the
racial stereotypes of the time. Rather, he is using his always razor sharp wit to criticize the very
society his characters land in at the end of the novel. There is an enormous contrast between the
first three quarters of the novel and the end that the reader should realize around Chapter 32, but
this change should come as no surprise to the reader for there is one key difference between the
majority of the novel and the last eleven chapters: the setting. Come the end of the novel, Huck
and Jim are no longer sheltered and isolated on the river. With their arrival at the Phelps’s farm,
they have reentered society. Twain purposely recalls the mood of the first few chapters for this
reason. Huck returns to a place where he can fall back into the whimsicalities of boyhood, and
Jim is back in a place where he is viewed as little more than an obstinate animal. To say that
Twain gives up on the ending would be to overlook this distinctive difference between the finale
and the chapters that precede it, for it is Huck and Jim’s return to society that is to blame for any
loss in moral theme.
So much may seem to be lost with the final chapters, but there is still a moral theme. This is
largely due to the fact that the fate of the lovable slave Jim leaves little hope for the freedman in
pre or post Civil War South. Twain is not being racist with these final chapters. He is simply
being realistic. Readers are understandably disappointed when the progress Jim makes
throughout the course of the novel begins to unravel in the end. Ho wever, this reversion is once
again the result of the fact that Huck and Jim have returned to society. Jim is the symbol of black
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America in Huckleberry Finn, and with his disastrous, yet perfect, ending, Twain is showing
what a hazard society can be to progress, especially the progress of the black man. As Marx
shows in his review of the ending, Jim is freed by the end of the novel, but this freedom is in
name only. Twain’s realism may be well hidden by the “maze of farcical invention” (Marx 296)
created by Tom and Huck, but his realism is there even underneath the syrupy sweetness of the
supposed happy ending. Twain presented his readers with this shocking conclusion in 1885
hoping to show what a hazard their society could be, but his novel still challenges his readers
today to determine if this is the kind of ending they want from their society as well.
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Works Cited
Eliot, Thomas Sterns. “The Boy and the River: Without Beginning or End.” Mark Twain
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Ed. Gerald
Graff and James Phelan. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1995. 286-290. Print.
Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. "Race and the Politics of Memory: Mark Twain and Paul Laurence
Dunbar." Journal of American Studies 40.02 (2006): 283-309. Print.
Graff, Gerald and James Phelan. “The Controversy over the Ending: Did Mark Twain Sell Jim
down the River?” Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Case Study in Critical
Controversy. Ed. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1995. 279-283.
Print.
Marx, Leo. “Mr. Eliot, Mr. Trilling, and Huckleberry Finn.” Mark Twain Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Ed. Gerald Graff and James
Phelan. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1995. 290-305. Print.
Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1994.
Print.