One of the things many critics of Huckleberry Finn just can't seem to understand is the final episode of the novel where Tom returns and sidetracks Huck from his rescue of Jim through a long series of silly, boyish plans based on ideas Tom has picked up from Romantic novels, such as those of Walter Scott. Critic Stephen Railton dismisses these final chapters as "just another version of their Royal Nonesuch" (405); referring, of course, to the silly play put on by the Duke and Dauphin in chapter 23. From one point of view, this whole "evasion" sequence seems funny and humorous in the traditions of frontier and southwestern humor. Twain had a reputation as a humorist, and some of his readers got a big laugh out of this section.
Many, however, are put off by it; think it seems out of place in this novel which deals with so many serious, adult subjects; who's theme is man's inhumanity toward man but still able to be surpassed by the simple friendship developed between a white boy and a Black slave on a raft. To many, who don't look too deeply, this final episode seems out of place, anticlimactical, undermining, or just downright abhorrent. Philip Young called the ending "irrelevant" (Gullason 357). Leo Marx called it a "flimsy contrivance" (Gullason 357). And William Van O'Connor called it "a serious anti-climax" (Gullason 357). That's just a small sampling.
But can it really be just some silly nonsense, some "Royal Nonesuch"? Can we really think so little of Twain to believe that he would just abandon the seriousness of one of the greatest novels ever written to meaningless fun? Well, there is a lot of humor in this book and the ending does seem to fit into that comic tradition. For one, Stephen Railton says Jim's role is "haplessly comic" (401). Several critics argue that Jim fits into the stereotypical figure of the black-face minstrel shows popular at the time (Carey-Webb 24) (an accusation with profound repercussions, to be addressed shortly). And remember how most of Twain's books until this one, such as The Innocents Abroad and Roughing It, were comic travel books. And it also seems likely that Twain is satirizing Romanticism (another possible idea to be addressed later).
However, despite the humor (or maybe because of it), the book remains very serious. As V. S. Pritchett puts it, "The curious thing about Huckleberry Finn is that, although it is one of the funniest books in all literature and really astonishing in the variety of its farce and character, we are even more moved than we are amused by it" (307). Pritchett goes on to say, "The value of a native humor like Twain's is that it expresses a profound reality in human nature: the ability of man to adjust himself to circumstance and to live somehow" (307). There is truth in comedy. Comedians can tell us brutal realities that dramatist cannot. As Pritchett explains later, "The subject of Huckleberry Finn is the comical but also brutal effect of an anarchic rebellion against civilization and especially its traditions" (308). In other words, the theme of rebellion against society is expressed in comedy as well as more direct ways.
That's fine for comedy throughout the book, but what specifically about this final episode on the Phelps' farm? It is the longest in the novel (Railton 402). And by it's place at the end--the most powerful place for any episode in an adventure novel, it screams to be recognized. Obviously, by length and position, it is the most important. It refuses to be ignored. It can be misinterpreted by some scholars, but to simply shrug it off as irrelevant is irresponsible.
R. W. Stallman makes an interesting thesis about reality and parody in Huckleberry Finn that although he does not directly apply it to the final episode, it could be so applied. Stallman talks about how everything in the book happens twice, first the real thing and then the parody of it:
An interesting thesis, clearly. Stallman gives several examples, besides Boggs, such as "when Huck is misidentified as Tom Sawyer (Ch. 32), he feels 'like being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was.' But this is a false rebirth, and a mockery of his quest to find himself" (Stallman 385). Though Stallman didn't suggest this, could the end episode be a parody of Jim's quest for freedom? Is it mocking the Romantic ideas of the dead Emmeline Grangerford who's favorite word was "alas"? All these serious things that came before are now being parodied.
This could be part of what's going on in this final episode, but I think there is a lot more as well.
As mentioned before, there is the question of Jim as a stereotype. In a slightly unrelated attempt to prove Huckleberry Finn is a racist work, several essays which appear in the book Satire or Evasion, edited by James S. Leonard, "make a persuasive case that Twain's depiction of Jim owes much to the popular nineteenth-century black-face minstrel show where white actors darkened their skin to the color of coal to render comic burlesques of African American speech and manners" (Carey-Webb 24). They say Twain is making fun of Jim and, by extension, all Blacks. And Stephen Railton argues that Huckleberry Finn sacrifices "everything else to make us laugh. If Jim is just a clown, white Americans have no reason to be uneasy or uncomfortable" (404).
First of all, Jim is far from a clown--he is Huck's father figure, a substitution for Pap. And white Americans do have a lot to be uncomfortable about in this book--just look at the evils of white society that Huckleberry Finn portrays. But Railton does make another argument which more appertains to the question of the ending, when he claims that there are really two Jims. One is the Jim on the raft whom we and Huck have come to know and love. But that, "against this Jim, however, we have to set the entirely different figure who is portrayed as Jim at the book's beginning and, especially, at its end. With this figure Mark Twain deliberately appeals to, gratifies and confirms his readers' prejudices" (Railton 400).
Yes, there are two Jims--the Jim at the beginning and at the end is less of a man than the Jim in the middle, on the raft, away from society. The fact that he is less of a character in part of the book has nothing to do with gratifying prejudices--if that were the case, obviously Jim would be a stereotype in the whole book. Rather Jim must, out of necessity, conform to the stereotypical role society holds for a slave, when he is in society. Jim doesn't suddenly become a different character; he's still the same Jim, but he's repressed, just as Huck is repressed by Tom. Twain is not just indulging comic tastes--he's showing the cruelty of a society that so represses this human being we know Jim is from his experiences on the raft with Huck. In the last silly episode, Jim is to be pitied as any great human being held back from his potential, not to be laughed at. Clearly the character in this episode to be laughed at is Tom, not Jim. From this point of view, the ending takes on a much more tragic and serious note, more appropriate to the themes and tone of the rest of the novel.
Some critics point out that Jim wins his freedom not by his own successful initiative, intelligence, or courage, but rather by the highly unrealistic benevolence of Miss Watson freeing a slave accused of the murder of a white boy; thus implying Blacks are unable to accomplish their own goals and whites are deeply good, generous, and forgiving at heart (Carey-Webb 25). However, it must be pointed out that this unrealistic ending is no more unrealistic than Tom's romantic notions of freeing a prisoner based on the ideas in a Walter Scott novel. In this solution to Jim's freedom, maybe Twain is dreaming; maybe he is being uncustomarily non-Realistic. But it's not just a simple Romantic solution; here Twain is dreaming of a world where whites can be forgiving and understanding towards Blacks. Twain, by writing this, is suggesting a thought that wouldn't occur to most people in his world. A white forgiving a Black is not racist, but the opposite of racism: idealism. Yes, I believe Twain was an idealist. A cynical idealist. That's not a contradiction of terms or an oxymoron. A cynical idealist is one who doesn't like where we are now, but thinks we can improve in the future. That is, after all, what satire is all about. Satire is ridicule of social situations in an attempt to improve them by pointing out the flaws, humorously. And satire was Twain's most comfortable vein. That, of course, is what Twain is doing here in the final scenes.
But what is he satirizing? Romanticism: something Twain hates. And the contrast between Romanticism and Realism is carried out throughout the novel. As Rubenstein explains, "Another important theme in the book ... is the conflict between romance and realism. This opposition comes out clearly in the contrast between Huck and Tom" (Rubenstein 383). This is seen not only in the end, but in the beginning as well, when Tom starts his gang of robbers, when he gets Huck to rub a lamp to find a genie, and when a Sunday-school picnic becomes to Tom a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich Arabs. Rubenstein, when analyzing the final episode, states that "Properly understood, however, the ending is but the final example of one of the main themes--the contrast between realism and romance" (380).
Rubenstein explains the theme as it is carried throughout the novel:
This is no radical idea--it is easy to see. And when Thomas Arthur Gullason looks at the final episode, he sees how it relates to this theme and explains that Twain's "primary objective in the 'fatal' last chapters is to ridicule, in the manner of Don Quixote, the romantic tradition as exemplified by Tom Sawyer, who lacks character, who is full of purposeless fun; and to win final sympathy for the realistic tradition and its hero, Huck, who has achieved a sense of responsibility and a meaningful vision in life" (357-358).
Gullason points out how Twain is trying to "kill" Romanticism, by making the Walter Scott a "wreck" (358). It is the novels of Walter Scott that Twain most hates and Tom most loves, and Twain is hoping to do away with that kind of silly Romantic thinking forever, by portraying Scott as a wreck breaking up.
Still there is criticism of this most important section of the novel. Rhett Jones, a professor from Rutgers, says that the ending, where Huck accedes to Tom's romantic manipulations, renders meaningless the beautiful relationship between Jim and Huck in the middle of the book, when they are on the river, because, in Jones' view, Huck rejects Jim's humanity (Carey-Webb 25).
But that is a hollow and shallow reading because, as Gullason points out,
Huck is grown and is asserting himself. He cannot override Tom-- he's just not strong enough for that--but he is much less passive and accepting of Tom than he is in the first few chapters. Huck does stop some of the more extravagant ideas.
Gullason also points out how Huck is criticizing the "authorities"-- the Romantic books Tom has been reading: "I don't give a dead rat what the authorities think about it nuther" (359-360). This is symbolic rebellion against all authority, one of the major themes of the work.
Railton has other ideas. He says, "What the ending really reflects, however, is Twain's need to be accepted" (402). He talks about his desire to be popular and give the public what they want. Railton says Twain, in the last quarter of the book, tries to appeal to his readers' expectations (407). But Railton greatly underestimates Twain's readers. By the time a reader gets three quarters of the way though this book and has been exposed to viscous acts, ranging from lying to cold-blooded murder to attempting to cheat a family out of its entire fortune, the last thing any reader would be expecting is a ridiculous farce involving spiders and inscriptions on the wall and throwing a plate out the window and watering plants with tears. Most readers (myself included, the first time I read this novel) would expect a serious, dramatic, possibly tragic ending. Twain chose, instead, to shock the reader with the unexpected. He reminds the reader, after he's converted him to a Realistic point-of-view, how silly his old Romantic expectations were. While Tom goes on and on postponing Jim's rescue with extravagant and unnecessary plans, the reader finds himself wanting to reach into the book, give Huck and Tom a good shaking, and tell them to get on with the real business of freeing Jim. Twain is shocking his readers and pulling them into the story. What could be more powerful and engaging than a first-time reader shouting at the characters and getting frustrated by their throwing obstacles into their own path and playing with the life of one whom they and the reader have come to care so much for--that of Jim?
But finally Huck overcomes this, rescues Jim, and realizes how corrupt civilization is and decides to light out for the Territory. As Gullason explains, "It is only in the last chapters that Huck completely rejects both Tom's romantic irresponsibility ... and society's cruel nature" (361). Gullason explains how Tom's highjinks continue to carry out the book's main theme of man's inhumanity to man (360). This is what Pritchett would call the cruelty of American humor.
The theme of man's inhumanity to man grows bigger and bigger as the book goes on. As these episodes seem to increase in meanness as they go farther down the river, as the inhumanity gets worse as the novel progresses, I am forced to ask is this last episode supposed to be the meanest of all, as it's position and length seem to indicate? Is turning Jim's quest for freedom into a boy's game the cruelest of all the inhumanity in the book? Is mocking freedom an even worse crime than cold-blooded murder, lynching, robbery, betraying a family's love? Perhaps to an American like Twain who values freedom and democracy above all else, it is.
And so the ending of Huckleberry Finn becomes the most powerful section, rather than the least powerful. It can never be ignored or shirked off. It is a grand climax, not some "Royal Nonesuch." It mocks Romanticism. It portrays Jim as a man repressed into a stereotype. It shows Huck's growth. It engages readers by giving them the opposite of what they expect. And it shows the most base cruelty of man, when freedom is mocked. It is a fantastically powerful ending to one of the greatest books ever written.
Works Cited
Gullason, Thomas Arthur. "The 'Fatal' Ending of Huckleberry Finn."
Hentoff, Nat. Free Speech for Me--But Not for Thee: How the American
Pritchett, V. S. "Huckleberry Finn and the Cruelty of American Humor."
Railton, Stephen. "Jim and Mark Twain: What Do Dey Stan' For?"
Rubenstein, Gilbert M. "The Moral Structure of Huckleberry Finn."
Stallman, R. W. "Reality and Parody in Huckleberry Finn." College