A sense of belonging is crucial for a person in the sense that it enables them to have freedom to fulfill their higher meaning in life. In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Huck undergoes a journey of seeking a place for him in the world and encounters events and people that allow him to develop independent thought in order to break free from societal pressure and fulfill his true moral compass, which served as the guide in his journey. Despite his struggles with guilt and the social institutions of conformity, religious hypocrisy, and slavery.
Along the journey which hinders his growth, Huck ultimately shows remarkable psychological and moral independence throughout this journey of maturing that allowed him to find his sense of belonging. In seek of a sense of belonging aside from societal institutions and hypocrisy, Huck uses the environment of the woods and the river as a basis for his more development of compassion and defying the authority, demonstrating that the sense of belonging can only be achieved through freedom and independence rather than conforming to society and its institutions.
In the beginning of the book, Huck resists to conform to the Widow’s house and Tom Sawyer’s band of robbers by questioning his sense of belonging, demonstrating that in order to break away from societal authority and conformity one must embrace their unique thoughts.
Huck hated living with the Widow and being bothered by the Widow and Miss Watson in their efforts to “sivilize” him because of how “dismal, regular and decent” they are. The book starts with Huck being sad and miserable as he is stuck in the Widow’s house, “I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead”. When he discusses his preference of going to Hell rather than Heaven with Miss Watson, Huck states “ All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn’t particular.” The repetition of “all I wanted” shows the desperate tone of Huck’s longing for a place to belong, and he knows that the current situation is not the place. Despite the desire to change his circumstances, Huck is clueless about where he wants to go, which means he is only starting to investigate his sense of belonging. Huck stays in the Widow’s place because Tom Sawyer, his friend, invites him to join the band of robbers.
When he first joins the boys, Huck is overly attached to finding a sense of belonging in the group, demonstrating how he’s influenced by Tom Sawyer and the group mentality of boys at his age. When Huck doesn’t have a family member to be offered as hostage, which everyone else in the group is able to do, he says, “I was most ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson-they could kill her.” The sad and disappointed tone when he states that he was ready to cry shows that Huck is scared to be left out of the group under the pressure of conformity. This shows Huck’s immaturity as he tries to fit into the group of boys in their thinking and behaviors. Comedy used here to highlight the light treatment of the otherwise base and ugly, and the fact that murdering a relative is seen as desirable serves to underscore the immaturity of the boys and the immorality of group conformity. Tom’s band of robbers embodies the dangerous mentality of mob mentality because people are only following what the conventional social norm according to the books without using their own moral judgement to see the humanity of the people they are harming.
Everything seems to be a joke as people are ignorant of the reality of the cruelty of their actions. This shows the degree of devastation if Huck decides that he belongs to the band of robbers and becomes corrupted by conforming to the mob mentality. Fortunately, Huck soon realizes the differences between him and the group of boys when he is alone in the woods, and he denies the superstition told by Tom by claiming,“ So then I judge that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer’s lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all the marks of a Sunday school.” Huck demonstrates his lack of faith in the system: the conformity to Tom’s and the Sunday school’s beliefs and the innate hypocrisy and lies as the product of civilization.
Through his affinity for the woods, Huck is able to discover a sense of belonging, showing that in order to find a sense of belonging, one must find an environment where they feel free and comfortable. Huck’s affinity for nature as the perfect place for his deeper contemplation and emotional connection is further reveal by his description of the night when Huck is all by himself waiting for the signal Tom sawyer in his room that “The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. ” Twain uses a descriptive imagery of the rustling leaves, the owl, and wind to channel Huck inner emotions. This shows how the natural world allows Huck to be introspective by aiding him in experiencing his emotions as he connects with nature by being alone. In contrast, Brander Mathew states in his criticism, “ none of these sentiments are appropriate to Tom Sawyer, who had none of the feeling for nature which Huck Finn had caught during his numberless days and nights in the open air” . The ability for Huck to be attracted and experience nature sets him apart from almost every character in the society of Saint. Petersburg, who are functioning high and middle class, institutionalized people who spend the most of their life under roofs of houses and conditioned to societal conformity. This demonstrates that even though Huck appears inferior in this social environment of the Widow, Miss Watson, and the band of robbers due to his socioeconomic background, he has a special calling of nature that will inspire him to go on a journey of self-empowerment. In fact, Huck embraces his true nature when he returns to the woods when Pap kidnaps him by explaining “ I had stopped cussing, because the widow didn’t like it; but now I took to it again because Pap hadn’t no objections. I was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it all around” This matter of fact tone further shows Huck’s ability to be influenced by his social environment, but deep down he knows he belongs in the woods and away from “sivilization”. Ironically, Pap is the one who kickstarted his journey to his moral and social development. Huck says, “I didn’t want to go back to the widow’s anymore and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it” the misspelling of civilized shows how little Huck actually cares about the society and the work that it imposes on Huck. The diction of cramped and misspelling of civilized shows that Huck is physically uncomfortable when he’s in civilization, which means that in the woods he’s truly comfortable and experiences authentic self and capable of real connections.
Mark Twain used the light of houses and cabins as a symbol for Huck’s physical distance from civilization and Huck’s belonging on the raft in a tone of peace, demonstrating that one must distance themselves from society’s restraint in order to experience a sense of belonging from physical independence. Huck’s self-actualization is visible when he stated as he escaped from society with Jim on the raft that “It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars…the fifth night we passed St. Louis…I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o’clock that night.” The tone of peacefulness as Huck and Jim, a runaway slave, stargazed parallels with the peace Huck experiences from looking at the city from afar, which allows him to appreciate the beauty of civilization. This contrast with his experience of the chaos of the city and the pressure to conform, and by distancing himself away from such chaos by being on the river is allowing him to experience peace with his surroundings and with Jim. The lights are a symbol for the chaos of society and the stars represent how it can only be admired from afar. His ability to observe and admire the scenery shows that Huck is in a tranquil state and comfortable with being with Jim when he is on a journey of escaping from society. This shows that Huck is rewarded by pursuing a path that satisfies himself rather than the people and the society around him. The symbols of light as society showed up again as the spark of a candle light and the song from a distant cabin and raft when Huck says “Sometimes we’d have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a spark—which was a candle in a cabin window—and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two—on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. It’s lovely to live on a raft.” The syntax of the sentence and the imagery of the subliminal cues indicating the existence of society creates a peaceful tone, to which Huck indicates a growing sense of belonging to.
After surviving on the raft together, both Jim and Huck agree by saying that “We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. ” The use of the word “home” to represent his life on a raft with Jim captures a sense of belonging that he isn’t able to experience from being in the city with its restricting conformity. This shows that not only is Huck more comfortable in the environment of nature because of the feelings of freedom and tranquility, he is able to find a sense of belonging from this physical independence.
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