How Does Huck Finn Run Away From Home

Nelson Mandela once said, “There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.” During his fight against apartheid, Mandela had to pass through that valley many times in order to bring about change in South Africa. When he became South Africa’s first president, he worked to end racism in his country. His ultimate goal was for every race to experience freedom in South Africa. He had to endure many hardships, including being imprisoned for twenty-seven years, but he eventually reached the mountaintop of his desires. The story of Mandela’s life is similar to the plot of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, …show more content…
Huck wants to escape his beatings at the hands of Pap Finn, who almost kills Huck. As soon as Pap returns to town, Huck becomes a victim of his abuse. The threat of Pap is what keeps Huck from returning home during the novel. Even at the end of the story, Huck expresses concern about Pap taking his money. “I reckon I couldn’t get none from home, because it’s likely pap’s been back before now, and got it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up”(Twain 300). Despite all the dangers Huck faces throughout the novel, he still considers Pap to be a threat. When Jim reveals that Pap was the dead man in the house, Huck is relieved. Having nothing holding him down, Huck decides to head west, finally free from his …show more content…
Throughout his quest for freedom, Jim is exposed to the heavily ingrained racism in the South at the time. Most characters in the novel use racial slurs when referring to Jim or other slaves. Even Huck uses these slurs, although he has no way of knowing any better. One of the prime examples of racism in the novel is Aunt Sally’s response to Huck saying a slave was killed during a steamboat accident. “Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt”(228). Aunt Sally doesn’t view the death as a tragedy because the person involved was a slave. Another example of the prejudice Jim experiences are his encounters with slave hunters. They consider it morally right to hunt down and capture slaves as if they were animals. This is the kind of racial prejudice that Jim wants to escape from. He doesn’t want to live in a place where his skin color decides how he’s treated. A country where you’re judged by that isn’t worth living in, and Jim wants to get out of the South and find a better life for himself and his