The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Character List | SparkNotes (2024)

Huckleberry “Huck” Finn

The protagonist and narrator of the novel. Huck is the thirteen-year-old son of the local drunk of St. Petersburg, Missouri, a town on the Mississippi River. Frequently forced to survive on his own wits and always a bit of an outcast, Huck is thoughtful, intelligent (though formally uneducated), and willing to come to his own conclusions about important matters, even if these conclusions contradict society’s norms. Nevertheless, Huck is still a boy, and is influenced by others, particularly by his imaginative friend, Tom.

Read an in-depth analysis of Huckleberry “Huck” Finn.

Tom Sawyer

Huck’s friend, and the protagonist of Tom Sawyer, the novel to which Huckleberry Finn is ostensibly the sequel. In Huckleberry Finn, Tom serves as a foil to Huck: imaginative, dominating, and given to wild plans taken from the plots of adventure novels, Tom is everything that Huck is not. Tom’s stubborn reliance on the “authorities” of romance novels leads him to acts of incredible stupidity and startling cruelty. His rigid adherence to society’s conventions aligns Tom with the “sivilizing” forces that Huck learns to see through and gradually abandons.

Read an in-depth analysis of Tom Sawyer.

Jim

One of Miss Watson’s household slaves. Jim is superstitious and occasionally sentimental, but he is also intelligent, practical, and ultimately more of an adult than anyone else in the novel. Jim’s frequent acts of selflessness, his longing for his family, and his friendship with both Huck and Tom demonstrate to Huck that humanity has nothing to do with race. Because Jim is a black man and a runaway slave, he is at the mercy of almost all the other characters in the novel and is often forced into ridiculous and degrading situations.

Read an in-depth analysis of Jim.

Pap Finn

Huck’s father, the town drunk and ne’er-do-well. Pap is a wreck when he appears at the beginning of the novel, with disgusting, ghostlike white skin and tattered clothes. The illiterate Pap disapproves of Huck’s education and beats him frequently. Pap represents both the general debasement of white society and the failure of family structures in the novel.

Read an in-depth analysis of Pap Finn.

The duke and the dauphin

A pair of con men whom Huck and Jim rescue as they are being run out of a river town. The older man, who appears to be about seventy, claims to be the “dauphin,” the son of King Louis XVI and heir to the French throne. The younger man, who is about thirty, claims to be the usurped Duke of Bridgewater. Although Huck quickly realizes the men are frauds, he and Jim remain at their mercy, as Huck is only a child and Jim is a runaway slave. The duke and the dauphin carry out a number of increasingly disturbing swindles as they travel down the river on the raft.

Read an in-depth analysis of the duke and the dauphin.

Widow Douglas and Miss Watson

Two wealthy sisters who live together in a large house in St. Petersburg and who adopt Huck. The gaunt and severe Miss Watson is the most prominent representative of the hypocritical religious and ethical values Twain criticizes in the novel. The Widow Douglas is somewhat gentler in her beliefs and has more patience with the mischievous Huck. When Huck acts in a manner contrary to societal expectations, it is the Widow Douglas whom he fearsdisappointing.

Read an in-depth analysis of Widow Douglas and Miss Watson.

Judge Thatcher

The local judge who shares responsibility for Huck with the Widow Douglas and is in charge of safeguarding the money that Huck and Tom found at the end of Tom Sawyer. When Huck discovers that Pap has returned to town, he wisely signs his fortune over to the Judge, who doesn’t really accept the money, but tries to comfort Huck. Judge Thatcher has a daughter, Becky, who was Tom’s girlfriend in Tom Sawyer and whom Huck calls “Bessie” in this novel.

The Grangerfords

A family that takes Huck in after a steamboat hits his raft, separating him from Jim. The kindhearted Grangerfords, who offer Huck a place to stay in their tacky country home, are locked in a long-standing feud with another local family, the Shepherdsons. Twain uses the two families to engage in some rollicking humor and to mock a overly romanticizes ideas about family honor. Ultimately, the families’ sensationalized feud gets many of them killed.

The Wilks family

At one point during their travels, the duke and the dauphin encounter a man who tells them of the death of a local named Peter Wilks, who has left behind a rich estate. The man inadvertently gives the con men enough information to allow them to pretend to be Wilks’s two brothers from England, who are the recipients of much of the inheritance. The duke and the dauphin’s subsequent conning of the good-hearted and vulnerable Wilks sisters is the first step in the con men’s increasingly cruel series of scams, which culminate in the sale of Jim.

Silas and Sally Phelps

Tom Sawyer’s aunt and uncle, whom Huck coincidentally encounters in his search for Jim after the con men have sold him. Sally is the sister of Tom’s aunt, Polly. Essentially good people, the Phelpses nevertheless hold Jim in custody and try to return him to his rightful owner. Silas and Sally are the unknowing victims of many of Tom and Huck’s “preparations” as they try to free Jim. The Phelpses are the only intact and functional family in this novel, yet they are too much for Huck, who longs to escape their “sivilizing” influence.

Aunt Polly

Tom Sawyer’s aunt and guardian and Sally Phelps’s sister. Aunt Polly appears at the end of the novel and properly identifies Huck, who has pretended to be Tom, and Tom, who has pretended to be his own younger brother, Sid.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Character List | SparkNotes (2024)

FAQs

What are the characteristics of Huckleberry Finn? ›

He is playful but practical, inventive but logical, compassionate but realistic, and these traits allow him to survive the abuse of Pap, the violence of a feud, and the wiles of river con men. To persevere in these situations, Huck lies, cheats, steals, and defrauds his way down the river.

Who is Huck Finn's best friend? ›

Tom Sawyer is Huck's best friend and peer, the main character of other Twain novels and the leader of the town boys in adventures.

Who did Huck have a crush on? ›

Huck grows especially fond of Mary Jane, the oldest of the group. She's "awful beautiful" (25.5), and "handsome" (25), and basically Huck has a giant crush on her.

Is Huck Finn Jim's son? ›

In their controversial essays, Fiedler and Nissen advocate that Huck Finn and Jim develop a romantic relationship based on homosexual feelings and affections; however, it may be clearly discerned from the text of Huck Finn that this reading of the book is tenuous and that, instead, readers can more accurately ...

Is Huckleberry Finn white or black? ›

The book chronicles his and Huckleberry's raft journey down the Mississippi River in the antebellum Southern United States. Jim is a black man who is fleeing slavery; "Huck", a 13-year-old white boy, joins him in spite of his own conventional understanding and the law.

How is Huck Finn described? ›

Huck, as he is best known, is an uneducated, superstitious boy, the son of the town drunkard. Although he sometimes is deceived by tall tales, Huck is a shrewd judge of character. He has a sunny disposition and a well-developed, if naively natural, sense of morality.

Who is Finn's main love interest? ›

Finn begins dating Flame Princess (Jessica DiCicco) in the third-season finale "Incendium", after realizing that Princess Bubblegum is too old to be compatible with him. Although Flame Princess' fiery nature makes their relationship difficult, they try to make it work.

Who took Huckleberry Finn as her son? ›

At the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom and Huck recover a treasure worth thousands of dollars, which is invested on their behalf; Huck is adopted by the Widow Douglas, who enrolls him in school in return for his saving her life.

Who is Huck mistaken for? ›

Huck arrives at the Phelps plantation shortly after Jim and is immediately mistaken for Tom Sawyer. When Tom Sawyer arrives, he claims to be Sid Sawyer.

What does 752 mean to Huck? ›

Guillermo Díaz and Jasika Nicole who played the couple Huck & Kim together in this episode are both coincidentally homosexual; one of the greatest pairings Shonda Rhimes put together. 752 is the time Huck briefly met his son, five-years-ago; Javi is now eight-years-old.

Why did Huck pull out Quinn's teeth? ›

While searching through security footage Huck finds out that Quinn was responsible for the security guard's death and starts to torture her by pulling out her teeth for betraying Olivia. When she comes back to the office, she learns that Huck doesn't regret his actions, which leads her to leave Pope & Associates.

Did Huck have a baby? ›

He was married to Kim and together, they have a son named Javi.

What was Huckleberry Finn's real name? ›

Twain based Huckleberry Finn on a real person.

The model for Huck Finn was Tom Blankenship, a boy four years older than Twain whom he knew growing up in Hannibal. Blankenship's family was poor and his father, a laborer, had a reputation as a town drunk.

What is the black guy name in Huckleberry Finn? ›

Jim, fictional character, an unschooled but honourable runaway slave in Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain.

What happens to Huck at the end of Huckleberry Finn? ›

At the end of the novel, Tom seems to be beyond reform, Huck opts out of society in his desire to go to Oklahoma, and the other adults are left in compromised positions. Jim is the only character who comes out of the mess looking like a respectable adult.

What personality type is Huckleberry Finn? ›

Huckleberry Finn could be classified as an ISTP personality type. This type is known for being independent, practical, and logical.

What are the characteristics of the genre of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? ›

First, the novel can be considered an adventure or picaresque novel. Huck Finn finds himself on wild and crazy episodic adventures throughout the book. Second, the novel can be considered a part of the bildungsroman genre that tells a coming of age story.

What are some character traits of Jim from Huckleberry Finn? ›

Jim's logic, compassion, intelligence, and above all, his loyalty toward Huck, Tom, and his own family, establish him as a heroic figure.

What is the overall message of Huckleberry Finn? ›

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by American author Mark Twain, is a novel set in the pre-Civil War South that examines institutionalized racism and explores themes of freedom, civilization, and prejudice.

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