Finding the American Dream in Huck Finn
In the Marc Twain’s American Novel Huck Finn, Huck travels down the Mississippi with his acquaintance Jim and together they seek their dream of prosperity and happiness. But their versions of the American Dream and their goals are completely different. One young man has the noble goal of reuniting his family, while the other simply wants to run away and live like a savage. Their goals converge because they are both dreamers and schemers. For dreams to come true you need several things to happen simultaneously: hard work, opportunity, luck, and support.
The Story of Huck Finn is not really the “Great American Dream” story in the traditional sense; you won’t find an honest, hardworking group of people who persevere over long odds. In fact, the story of Huck Finn is the complete opposite and Marc Twain loves pointing it out. Many of the characters are just trying to make a quick dollar with little to no work ”What's the use 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?”(Twain) . In the story there are many frauds and get quick rich schemes that never work, or if they do work something backfires causing the characters unintended trouble. As examples, one could easily single out the “King” and the “Duke” but I could also point out the man who is hunting for Jim on the island just for a glorifying pay raise. Ironically, the only character that has any “real American” character in the story, and who does a true days work, is the slave Jim. His goal is simple and just; you see him working his way out of slavery and trying to raise his family out of slavery.
My family loves listening to audio books and one of my favorites was “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. Listening to his essays on how people have become successful and hearing him recount interviews with the people as they explain their story of success pointed out one common thread. In virtually all cases, they had a special opportunity to excel and to be great. One of those essays focused on Bill Gates. He became great because he had the opportunity to code every day and he took the opportunity. Of course his opportunity was that he could get essentially (somewhat unauthorized) unlimited computer time from the local University to do it. Back in the late sixties and seventies this was really unusual. He even snuck out of the house at odd hours to put extra hours into his master piece. This opportunity was in part luck with the local university being so easy to access, but it also required him to have a certain single-mindedness similar to Jim.
A key aspect of doing something great is you almost always had to have help accomplishing it. Batman had Robin. Bill Gates had Paul Allen ( a super rich co-founder of Microsoft that no one hears about) and Huck had Jim. Marc Twain loves to show how the two different characters Jim and Huck had each other and how they gritted through the hard times and let time fly during the easy times. Through it all they were always there for each other. When I think of success I think of sports and how in athletics you always have support from fans, teammates, or even your coach. In the long run you never do it by yourself, successful teams stick together no matter what and must recover from adversity just like Huck and Jim did through their travels.
Huck Finn in one key way is the definition of the American dream because it’s about two people who start with nothing and end up with what they desired. It does turn the “Dream” on its side sometimes and I think that is what makes it such a timeless story. I think people confuse the American dream with just getting rich and having a nice life but Huck Finn points out that success is often simply about making an improvement from where you started.
In the Marc Twain’s American Novel Huck Finn, Huck travels down the Mississippi with his acquaintance Jim and together they seek their dream of prosperity and happiness. But their versions of the American Dream and their goals are completely different. One young man has the noble goal of reuniting his family, while the other simply wants to run away and live like a savage. Their goals converge because they are both dreamers and schemers. For dreams to come true you need several things to happen simultaneously: hard work, opportunity, luck, and support.
The Story of Huck Finn is not really the “Great American Dream” story in the traditional sense; you won’t find an honest, hardworking group of people who persevere over long odds. In fact, the story of Huck Finn is the complete opposite and Marc Twain loves pointing it out. Many of the characters are just trying to make a quick dollar with little to no work ”What's the use 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?”(Twain) . In the story there are many frauds and get quick rich schemes that never work, or if they do work something backfires causing the characters unintended trouble. As examples, one could easily single out the “King” and the “Duke” but I could also point out the man who is hunting for Jim on the island just for a glorifying pay raise. Ironically, the only character that has any “real American” character in the story, and who does a true days work, is the slave Jim. His goal is simple and just; you see him working his way out of slavery and trying to raise his family out of slavery.
My family loves listening to audio books and one of my favorites was “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. Listening to his essays on how people have become successful and hearing him recount interviews with the people as they explain their story of success pointed out one common thread. In virtually all cases, they had a special opportunity to excel and to be great. One of those essays focused on Bill Gates. He became great because he had the opportunity to code every day and he took the opportunity. Of course his opportunity was that he could get essentially (somewhat unauthorized) unlimited computer time from the local University to do it. Back in the late sixties and seventies this was really unusual. He even snuck out of the house at odd hours to put extra hours into his master piece. This opportunity was in part luck with the local university being so easy to access, but it also required him to have a certain single-mindedness similar to Jim.
A key aspect of doing something great is you almost always had to have help accomplishing it. Batman had Robin. Bill Gates had Paul Allen ( a super rich co-founder of Microsoft that no one hears about) and Huck had Jim. Marc Twain loves to show how the two different characters Jim and Huck had each other and how they gritted through the hard times and let time fly during the easy times. Through it all they were always there for each other. When I think of success I think of sports and how in athletics you always have support from fans, teammates, or even your coach. In the long run you never do it by yourself, successful teams stick together no matter what and must recover from adversity just like Huck and Jim did through their travels.
Huck Finn in one key way is the definition of the American dream because it’s about two people who start with nothing and end up with what they desired. It does turn the “Dream” on its side sometimes and I think that is what makes it such a timeless story. I think people confuse the American dream with just getting rich and having a nice life but Huck Finn points out that success is often simply about making an improvement from where you started.