Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Individual
Group Discount
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews December 15, 2023 December 8, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan - Group Discount
Qty: 00
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
For Huck and Jim, the Mississippi River is the ultimate symbol of freedom. Alone on their raft, they do not have to answer to anyone. The river carries them toward freedom: for Jim, toward the free states; for Huck, away from his abusive father and the restrictive “sivilizing” of St. Petersburg. Much like the river itself, Huck and Jim are in flux, willing to change their attitudes about each other with little prompting. Despite their freedom, however, they soon find that they are not completely free from the evils and influences of the towns on the river’s banks. Even early on, the real world intrudes on the paradise of the raft: the river floods, bringing Huck and Jim into contact with criminals, wrecks, and stolen goods. Then, a thick fog causes them to miss the mouth of the Ohio River, which was to be their route to freedom.
As the novel progresses, then, the river becomes something other than the inherently benevolent place Huck originally thought it was. As Huck and Jim move further south, the duke and the dauphin invade the raft, and Huck and Jim must spend more time ashore. Though the river continues to offer a refuge from trouble, it often merely effects the exchange of one bad situation for another. Each escape exists in the larger context of a continual drift southward, toward the Deep South and entrenched slavery. In this transition from idyllic retreat to source of peril, the river mirrors the complicated state of the South. As Huck and Jim’s journey progresses, the river, which once seemed a paradise and a source of freedom, becomes merely a short-term means of escape that nonetheless pushes Huck and Jim ever further toward danger and destruction.
Through their journeys on the Mississippi River, the raft Huck and Jim build together comes to symbolize a space outside of the dictates for society where they can redefine proper conduct and behavior. Whereas Huck describes his other homes as stifling or confining, he describes the raft as being “free and easy.” Notably, life on the raft is only comfortable so long as everyone treats everyone else with respect. When Huck plays mean tricks on Jim or considers turning him in, they face terrifying fog and even the raft breaking. After Jim and Huck establish a respectful friendship, their life on the raft is pleasant and enjoyable.
At first the duke and dauphin appear to uphold the rules of the raft. The dauphin reminds the duke that a raft is a small space and one person’s rudeness can disrupt its atmosphere. However, the duke and the dauphin are not actually prepared to be respectful. Even before they decide to try and sell Jim, their plans for hiding him involve tying him up, which makes Jim uncomfortable. Unsurprisingly, the duke and dauphin throw off the equilibrium of the raft, and eventually bring about the end of Huck and Jim’s idyllic society.
As the primary Black character in the book, Jim becomes a symbol for the larger injustices of the institution of slavery and anti-Black racism. Every time Huck has a crisis of conscience about stealing Miss Watson’s “property,” he finds himself stuck on how terrible he’d feel betraying Jim. This apparent contradiction—that Jim is a person whom Huck can choose to be loyal to or betray while also legally being someone’s property—highlights the fundamental repugnancy of slavery. Furthermore, Jim’s backstory and motivations are inherently sympathetic. He wants to escape both to avoid facing the terrors of enslavement farther south, and also to free his wife and children. By emphasizing that Jim has a family whom he thinks about constantly and cares about, the novel demonstrates how awful it is that he not only faces separation from them but will also have to purchase the right to be near them. Finally, Jim acts as a more responsible father figure to Huck than Huck’s own father. Jim’s kindness and care toward Huck emphasizes Jim’s humanity and implicitly criticizes any society that would consider Huck’s betrayal of Jim to be the moral decision.
Take the Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Quick Quiz
Please wait while we process your payment