Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The Mississippi River
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.
