How Huck Finn Uses His Quick Wit

Essay, Research Paper

How Huck Finn Uses His Quick Wit The topic in which I am going to explain is how Huck Finn uses his quick wit in escaping situations, which he does a lot in the book, Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. A few examples would be when he runs away from his father, when they find and steal the robber s ship, and when the duke and the king come and their whole ending part.When Huck runs away from his father would be an example of using quick wit. Huck was being beaten and treated so badly that Huck decided that he better escape and fast. Huck s dad never let him out of the house so when he went to town, Huck was left in the house alone. One day he found an ax hiding in the house which made him think that this would be his means of escape. Everyday while his father was in town Huck cut a hole in the house and covered it with tarp when his dad would arrive home. Well, finally he made the hole big enough to fit his body through. He had earlier found a canoe in the water and hid it in a swamp beside the house, out of sight. The day of his planned escape Huck took all the things he needed such as food and clothes. Walking through the woods back to the house he spotted a wild boar in the woods and got a brilliant idea. He killed the boar and brought it in the house and sprayed the inside of the house with blood to make it look like he had been killed. Then he overturned the furniture to look like a struggle and ripped out some hair to look like it really had been Huck and also to give the delusion it had been a great struggle. Then he put the dead boar in a bag and put rocks in it, dragged it to the lake to look like they drowned Huck, and threw the bag in the lake so that the dead boar wouldn t float back to the top. After all this he got in his canoe and rowed away to Jackson Island. His father thought he had been drowned and killed and the townspeople thought that Huck s father killed him so it worked out to be Huck s advantage. Jim and Huck have been on the river for a couple days, during that time, Jim built a tent on the raft to protect them against the weather. They eventually hit a big storm, and they came up to a shipwrecked steamboat, when Huck decides, against the wishes of Jim, to board the ship.

On the ship, Huck overhears the plans of two accomplices who plan to eliminate the third member of their gang. Huck then plans to release their boat, so that all three accomplices will be stuck on the sinking ship, however, when he goes to Jim, he discovers, that their boat has washed away, and they are stranded on the ship.Huck and Jim take off in the robber s ship, and eventually find their raft. Before that however, Huck told a watchman about the sinking ship, and that there were three people on the ship. The Watchman reluctantly finds and saves them.It seems as though the whole focus of the book changes when Huck and Jim help two men who are being chased by some other men and their dogs. The two men come aboard ship, one is about 30 and he claims to be the Duke of Bridgewater, the other is about 70 and he claims to be the Dauphin of France.Huck didn’t give the identities of the Duke and the king, but his conscious kicks in and Huck grabs the money that the Duke and Dauphin get, and he hides it in a coffin. He later confronts Mary Jane another niece, and confesses everything to her, however, to give him time to get away, Huck makes sure Mary Jane does nothing for a day.The Dauphin goes to the printing office and gets a handbill saying the Jim is a runaway slave, and he intends to keep it just in case anybody question’s Jim’s being there. After a couple days, the Dauphin sells Jim as a runaway slave. Huck is angered at them both for selling Jim, and decides to write a letter to Mrs. Watson, so that she will take he and Jim back, but he tears up the letter and he finds out that Jim is at a nearby plantation, and decides to free him.These are just a few examples of the many ways of how Huck uses his quick wit to escape situations. When he runs away from his dad, when they find and steal the robber s ship, and when the duke and the king come and their whole ending part.