“His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the habits with
the old clothes of his father” – Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle” (1819).
Discuss the importance of heredity and of transcending the past in one or more texts from
the module.
According to Ernest Hemmingway, “All modern American literature comes from
one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”(Hemmingway, 15). For
Hemmingway and its other admirers, many equally revered, The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn began a great literary tradition of American realism; a novel narrated
by a boy who could only be American and a tale that could only unfold on and around
that iconic image of the South, the Mississippi River. Despite this, Huckleberry Finn
remains much maligned and debated, mostly for the language and attitude of Huck, and
the presentation of the escaped slave, Jim. Twain has been accused of presenting a “white
fantasy” where “blacks have all the humanity of Cabbage Patch dolls”(Lester, 44), but
such critics miss the point and significance of Jim’s humanity and morality, his love for
his family and his sense of paternal responsibility for Huck. It attempts to parody and
challenge attitudes toward African-Americans across the pre and post Civil War eras,
positioning slavery as an inescapable feature of the American past, and an ongoing
contributor to its culture, by showing the impossibility of transcending one’s own history.
While journeying down the Mississippi River, Mark Twain’s title character is faced with
a variety of challenges to his initial perceptions of race, justice and morality, while
encountering a variety of paternal figures that influence his attempts to comprehend the
complex culture of the South. He is running away from the past and his father; physically
escaping the latter but relentlessly pursued by the former. Huck changes and escapes
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repeating a lot of his culture’s sins, but some aspects are far too engrained for him to
overcome. He succeeds in the great human endeavour to not relive his father’s mistakes,
but heredity transcends his conscious actions, forcing a certain level of resemblance in
character. Therefore, Huck displays both the benefits and shortcomings in the impossible
nature of transcending the past. Through his inability to escape his home and its
associated values, Huck is forced, though unknowingly, to address and deconstruct. He
forms a more rounded and individual perspective, if not yet one which is without
prejudice or limitations. The restrictive nature of Huck’s heredity imposes upon him
foundational critical assumptions which are impossible to escape, but provides obstacles
in his attempts to rationalise his moral choices. The widening of Huck’s cultural
perspective is a critical foundation for the ensuing contemplation of morality, and a vital
consequence of his character development, which concludes with the ripping up of the
letter addressed to Miss Watson(Twain, 203).
Huck’s changing perspective is grounded in the influence of the various paternal
figures of the novel. Initially, and ironically, it is Pap who encourages Huck’s unlearning,
an attitude toward discourse which complements his later assessment of Jim and
encourages him to put aside the principles of his own father. By menacingly telling Huck
to “drop that school, you hear”(22), Pap allows him to engage in the family tradition of
being uneducated, as “None of the family couldn’t [read], before they died”(22)1, but also
to question the significance and relevance of traditional teaching. Pap’s threat requires
little enforcement as their “lazy and jolly”(26) life in the cabin is greatly appealing to
Here, Pap’s unintentional and ironic double negative gives the opposite meaning he intends, as it’s obvious he
is attempting to say that none of the family could read.
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Huck in so much as he says “I had stopped cussing, because the widow didn’t like it; but
now I took to it again because Pap hadn’t no objections”(26) and didn’t mind that his
“clothes got to be all rags and dirt”(26). This process of unlearning and separation from
society helps Huck ignore his own father’s authority in running away and going to school
to “spite Pap”(25). Therefore, while the Widow gives him a taste of being educated and
“civilised”(27) and he learns to “stand”(17) school, Huck embraces the initial few months
with his father with much more natural enthusiasm. This could suggest heredity is
playing a significant role in Huck’s emerging character, as it is the lifestyle most
associated with his father which is most attractive. However, he maintains throughout a
seemingly intrinsic want to avoid incidents which “would only make trouble”(4) or result
in direct confrontation; a self-preservation and passiveness he certainly doesn’t get from
his father, and a trait which justifies his compliance with Pap. Huck is given a choice and
an experience of both the civilised and savage world. He is subject to the Widow and
Miss Watson’s “a-bothering about Moses”(4) and Pap’s attempts to prevent him “be[ing]
better ‘n what he[Pap] is”(22). Along with this, he has Jim “standing my watch on top of
his’n, stead of calling me”(203), and showing genuine care and apprehension for his
safety, including not leaving when Huck is taken in by the Grangerfords(107). As a
result, Huck is able to take, leave and adapt the teachings of these parental figures to that
which are the best fit for his natural character and current situation.
Despite his father’s violence and untrustworthiness, Huck appreciates and
replicates his economic ingenuity. Huck says “the June rise used to always be luck for
me” as it allowed him to scavenge log and “sell them to the wood yards and the
sawmill”(32), an idea shown to be picked up from Pap when he does the same(33). The
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marked difference however is that Huck, while appreciating the idea’s inventiveness and
the aspect of fun, already has more money than he “could tell what to do with”(3). Pap,
however, has a need for alcohol which equates to a need for money, forcing him into a
consideration of life in fiscal terms. His complaints about the African-American from
Ohio focus on his “gold watch” and his “silver-headed cane”, as well his not being
sold(28). Because his sense of injustice appears in such a form, Pap is seen to perceive a
waste of money as much as a man in an undeserved social position. Huck similarly
commits the racist slur of portraying African-Americans as commodities when he
describes Jim’s children as “children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know, a man
that hadn’t ever done me no harm”(87). While, as slaves in slave-trading states, they were
commodities, Huck’s description is an example of Pap’s fiscally-driven thinking being
evident in his own deliberations; his sympathies are for the faceless white man who
would be robbed of valuable assets, rather than for his dispossessed friend. Despite this
Huck doesn’t act to rectify the ‘injustice’. While he says his sympathises are with the
owner of Jim’s children, his unreliability as a narrator is typified by his inaction. His
appreciation and mimicry of his father’s abilities to earn a few dollars from nothing are
examples of a level of heredity, but Huck, as Samuel Clemens’ pseudonym suggests, is a
much deeper character. For example he possesses an ability- shown to be shared by his
father in the dealing with the judge(24)- to lie convincingly and without prior
deliberation, but he learns to use more it discriminately after upsetting Jim(84).
Consequently, Huck is impaired in his judgement and interpretation of Jim’s emotional
situation, but combats this impairment. His companion’s issues conflict with the
combined notion of white superiority and financial justice that his father so vehemently
promotes, but play to Huck’s overarching compulsion to do the right thing, even if he
isn’t yet quite self-aware enough to acknowledge its existence.
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Some critics may argue that Huck “is driven to accept the beliefs and pursue the
life of the loner”(Donaldson, 32) in his father’s footsteps, and thus is a character dictated
to by heredity. There is, however, a distinct difference in sharing basic characteristics,
here an attraction to the freedom of the outdoors, away from the rules of society, and
having indistinguishable motivations. Pap is at one point “gone three days”(26),
presumably drunk. He is unable to find the peace in the river and its banks that Huck
embraces and relies upon- Huck says “there warn’t no home like a raft, after all”(112)and though he provides Huck with basic interests and fundamental attitudes, they remain
hugely different people. Huck is often deeply critical, ashamed and wary of his father’s
lifestyle; after all it is the violence erupting from Pap’s Laius complex which encourages
Huck’s audacious escape. “When Pap is present, Huck braces himself for violence and
exploitation; when he is absent, Huck expects his troubles to resume the moment "the ole
man" returns”(Pitofsky, 59), suggesting he certainly doesn’t consciously attempt to evoke
the thought processes of his father. Robert Paul Lamb labels the elder Finn’s mode of
deliberation as “Pap-logic”(480), a means of interpreting morally ambiguous issues with
seeming impartiality, but always coming to a self-beneficial conclusion. Derosa argues
that this is evident in Huck(163), but his decision to reject the opportunities to turn in Jim
is in complete contradiction to such ‘logic’. He follows what he perceives to be the
morally correct path, despite the lack of consequences which might benefit him, except
possibly the prospect of avoiding guilt. Certainly “Pap-logic”(Lamb, 480) would justify
turning Jim in and collecting the reward, highlighting Huck’s decision as the ultimate
example of the characteristics which make him distinct from his father.
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Huck does show traits and thought processes inherited and learnt from his father,
but mostly in the form of instantaneous thought and phrases founded in racial stereotypes
and assumptions. These serve to display a use of inherited phraseology in arguments,
either with himself or someone else, which he cannot win. He says “you can’t learn a
nigger to argue”(78) when failing to explain the difference between French and English
to Jim, and “What’s the use in you learning to do right, when it’s troublesome to do right
and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?”(89). Employment of
such expressions, along with the constant use of the term “nigger”, shows how much
Huck’s attitude is reliant upon truisms. Derosa argues “that Huck follows the observed
behaviour rather than the symbolically transmitted information”(163), yet his use of these
phrases implies at least a recognition of this information and its literal meaning and
usefulness, if not an understanding of its cultural significance. He uses these assumed
truths to generalise, but is unable to act on their meanings. Saying such things would
imply an absence of empathy, especially with African-Americans, yet when he initially
tries to turn Jim in, “the words wouldn’t come” as he “warn’t man enough”(88),
suggesting his conscience gets the better of him. The second time, he is reminded that Jim
did “everything he could think of for me”(203). This serves to show that, while Huck is
subject to his heredity on a basic level, he knows prejudices are morally wrong. His
racism lies in his repeating of common cultural phrases and language, but as his own
character comes out, inspired by his break from society on the raft and his experiences
with Jim, he is able to make more astute and calculated judgements, rather than simply
recycle the racist phraseology he has grown up amongst.
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Heredity in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn exists as a limitation and a tool
for the growth of the title character. Pap, through his fear of Huck intellectually
surpassing him and his attempts to prevent such a situation, alienates his son from his
way of life, while simultaneously endowing him with shared qualities. As well as being a
violent drunk with a Laius complex, Huck’s father is a man of the pre-emancipation
American South. As a result, Pap and his contemporaries provide Huck with a dialect
which is intertwined with racial slurs and stereotypes. For Huck, every issue can be
solved with a turn of phrase, except when it can’t. In these situations, most notably while
helping Jim and deliberating aiding his escape, Huck is forced to delve deeper into his
own morals. This is not the self-conscious philosophical deliberation seen in the likes of
Melville, but an attempt to comprehend specific events and individual choices which
have an overarching impact on the perceptions of one’s own moral values. “When Huck
declares, "All right, then, I'll go to hell," rather than betray Jim's trust by returning him to
his owner, Huck becomes his own person”(Mulhern,222), but doesn’t end his process of
“Cultural transmission”(Derosa, 158) as his decision is made with the implication that it
is in some way wrong. This sense of wrongdoing is an example of the impossibility of
transcending the past. But even in the face of this, even if it’s only for this one moment in
time, Huck is able to ignore and repress enough to do the right thing.
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Works Cited and Referenced
Bloom, Harold, ed. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: “The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn”: Updated Edition. New York, NY. Infobase Publishing. 2007. Print.
Burg, David F.. “Another View of Huckleberry Finn.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction
29.3 (1974): 299-319. JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Derosa, Aaron. “Europe, Darwin, and the Escape from Huckleberry Finn.” American
Literary Realism 44.2 (2012): 157-171. Project MUSE. Web. 27/11/13.
Derwin, Susan. “Impossible Commands: Reading Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 47. 4 (1993): 437-454. JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Donaldson, Scott. “Pap Finn’s Boy.” South Atlantic Bulletin 36.3 (1971): 32-37.
JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Harrison, Stanley R. “Mark Twain’s Requiem for the Past.” Mark Twain Journal
16.2 (1972): 3-10. JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Hawkins, Hunt. “Mark Twain's Anti-Imperialism.” American Literary Realism
1870-1910 25.2 (1993): 31-45. JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Hemingway, Ernest. Green Hills of Africa. 1936. London: Vintage, 2004. Print.
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Horwitz, Howard. “Can We Learn to Argue? “Huckleberry Finn” and Literary
Discipline.” ELH 70.1 (2003): 267-300. JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Howe, Lawrence. “Transcending the Limits of Experience: Mark Twain’s Life on
the Mississippi.” American Literature 63.3 (1991): 420-439. JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Kellner, Robert Scott. “Mark Twain and the Mental Cripple: The Challenge of
Myth.” Mark Twain Journal 21.4 (1983): 18-20. JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Krauss, Jennifer. “Playing Double in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”” Mark
Twain Journal 21.4 (1983): 22-24. JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Lamb, Robert Paul. “America Can Break Your Heart: On the Significance of Mark
Twain” A Companion to American Fiction, 1865–1914: Ed. Lamb and G. R. Thompson.
Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2005. 480. Print.
Lester, Julius. “Morality and Adventures of “Huckleberry Finn.”” Mark Twain
Journal 22.2 (1984): 43-46. JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Mulhern, Chieko Irie. “Hero and Father in Shimazaki Tôson and Western
Classics.” Comparative Literature Studies 24.3 (1987): 213-230. JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
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Pitofsky, Alex. “Pap Finn's Overture: Fatherhood, Identity, and Southwestern
Culture in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”” The Mark Twain Annual 4 (2006): 55-70.
JSTOR. Web. 27/11/13.
Traber, Daniel S. “Hegemony and the Politics of Twain's Protagonist/Narrator
Division in “Huckleberry Finn.”” South Central Review 17.2 (2000): 24-26. JSTOR.
Web. 27/11/13.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. London: HarperCollins
Publishers, 2013. Print.
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