17: Symbol

  Runaways typically crave one thing: freedom. This case is not different for the two runaways of this novel, Jim and Huck. The Mississippi River symbolizes this freedom for the two. While they are sailing on their raft, or resting on the shore, they answer to no one but one another, and it seems as though nothing can catch them. The river takes them anywhere, and keeps them from things. It carries Huck further from Pap and the pecking of his caregivers in the town, and lifts Jim on his way to a free state and closer to his family.

   A fog arises on the river later in the novel, which causes Huck and Jim to become separated and lost for a bit. This fog could represent blindness, particularly targeted at Huck. He is already a free young man, he is not enslaved and about to be sold off, like Jim is. He had every reason to escape his cruel, drunken father, but the right thing to do would have been to return to the town and be taken care of by the widow or the judge, despite their annoying "pecking." Huck could have been a happy, educated lad spending time with his friends if he would have returned to the town, and he would have most likely been protected from Pap. He, basically, would have had everything Jim wants. This could also explain the symbolism of Jim and Huck being separated as they sail through the fog. Jim needs to run away if he wants to find his family and freedom, but Huck does not. Realistically, Huck should return home, and Jim should keep going. However, the struggles in the fog also show how much the two really need one another, and they continue on their free way.