The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn we soon learn that the main character is Huck, an adventurous adolescent boy who is constantly getting himself into trouble. In the beginning of this novel, Huck was taken in by the widow Douglass. She planned to civilize Huck, get him into some decent clothes and give him an education. By an education, the widow wanted Huck to attend school to learn how to read and write. She thought these skills would make Huck more sophisticated and thought highly of. "I had been to school most all the time, and could spell, and read, and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty five, and I don't reckon I could get no further"pg. 65.

The widow believed that book learning was the most important way of learning. By trying to civilize Huck, she was trying to get him to focus on school and go to church. Huck's dad heard about what was happening at the widows house. His dad hated the idea of his son going to school and getting an education. One evening his dad crept into the widows house into Huck's room. He warned Huck to stop going to school and that he didn't want to hear of him attending anymore. Huck was forced to keep going, but his dad soon took Huck to live with him. His dad hated school education. He didn't want his son living that way. He felt that educated people looked down on him, and he didn't want his son to think like that. His father believed that learning by life experiences was more important.

Huck spent a short period of time living with his dad. Soon Huck escaped and started living a life of his own. Huck and Jim lived through the rest of the book being educated by life experiences. Huck preferred the life he was living to his life at the widows. "I didn't see how I'd ever got to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the time. I didn't want to go back no more. It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it all around."pg. 75.

Although school education is important for everyone today, it wasn't that way during Huck's time. During Huck's time he had to learn to survive. He managed to escape many terrible situations by his wit and common knowledge. He was a survivor and knew the land on which he was living. Books can only teach you so much. They prepare you for the academic world and for a life of getting an education. This didn't interest Huck and he chose to make it on his own. If everyone chose to live like Huck who would have gotten an education. Who would have attained knowledge in order to make advances. Huck and Jim survived because they had each other. They used mistakes from their past to learn and became wiser in their future. Huck and Jim used their life experiences to live and survive.

Mark Twain is the author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. After reading this book I think that Mark Twain thought that being educated by life experiences is more important. If you personally live through a tough experience you are going to learn from it. You may not know that you've learned but you will adjust instinctively. I think Mark Twain thought this education was better than school because of Huck and Jim. He showed how you can learn on your own without sitting in a classroom filled with books. Huck and Jim learned from their mistakes and became well educated all on their own.