1. Summary of the Novel Mark Twain's 1884 novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is the story of a young boy, Huckleberry Finn, who lives in St. Petersburg, Missouri, along the banks of the Mississippi River, and essentially wants to become himself and live as he wants. As the story begins, Huck is “civilized” (Twain 1) by a widow named Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson. Huck feels limited by the manners, education, and general "righteousness" he is fed. To combat this, he often sneaks out with friends (one of whom is Tom Sawyer) to take part in "heists" (although the gang never commits any illegal crimes). Eventually, Huck's often drunken father Pap kidnaps Huck from the widow, as he is quite interested in some money Huck has come in due to his previous adventures with Tom, and takes him to a cabin across the river where drunks are beaten. To escape this miserable fate, Huck soon fakes his own death and rides a stray canoe to Jackson's Island, where he later meets Jim, a fugitive slave of Douglas, ironically. The two live together for a while, but eventually notice that search parties are being sent out for both of them, so they decide to board a stray raft and float down the river, away from St. Petersburg. The two hope to stop at the mouth of the Ohio River, where Jim can travel north to become a free man. Along the way they encounter many interesting sights and close encounters: a sinking steamboat with hostile thieves on board, a group of slave catchers in a thick fog (which floats them past the mouth of the Ohio), and a riverboat steam. which divides their raft and their company with each other, while Huck ends up washing... middle of paper... h, Washington State University. Network. December 28, 2012. "Mark Twain." Trans. Elements of Literature: Fifth Course. . 1st ed. Austin: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2000. 450-451. Press. “The Realism and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” www.123helpme.com. Np 04 Apr 2012. Web. 28 Apr 2013. SparkNotes Editors. "SparkNote on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Network. April 12, 2013. "The Official Website of Mark Twain." www.cmgww.com. Np Web. 28 April 2013. .Twain, Marco. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: CRW Publishing Limited, 2004. Print.Wikipedia Contributors. "Mark Twain." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. .