The True Antagonist(s) of “Huckleberry Finn”

A wise man once said that:

“the quality of a father can be seen in goals, dreams, and aspirations he sets not only for himself, but for his family”

The goals set by Pap, in Huckleberry Finn, for himself are egocentric, and filled with jealousy. In fact, the aspirations, and dreams he sets for Huck are malevolent, and again, only wish to benefit him. With all of this in mind, it begs the question: If Pap hadn’t gone on his narcissistic rampage at the beginning of the book, could all crisis’ have been averted?

Let’s go back to where this all started, in the previous book, Huck finds a stash of gold, which thereby makes Huck relatively rich. Due to the fact that Huck was (and still is) a minor, the bank held this sum of money in a trust. Around the same time, Huck is adopted by the Widow Douglas. Fast forward to the rising action of Huckleberry Finn, and Huck’s abusive and drunk father, Pap reappears in town and demands Huck’s custody, and his money. Due to the fallibility of a new judge, Pap gets exactly what he wants.

This is where I believe, that if it weren’t for Pap, Huck would’ve lived a significantly less volatile life. Now although Huck might’ve despised his current mundane, and respectable life, you don’t need to a clinical psychologist to determine that this “mundane” life would’ve served for the betterment of Huck’s character, education, and other skills. So, quite obviously, I come to the conclusion that Pap is our first, and biggest antagonist of this book.

Before I go on, I’d like to alter the definition of “antagonist”. By antagonist, I’m not re- ferring to some sort of a Bond villain, with the intentions of destroying the entire world. Rather, I believe, that for this essay, an antagonist refers to someone who negatively impacts Huck’s (the protagonist’s) life (by our, not Huck’s standards).

Based on this updated definition, I believe that Huck, is an antagonist in this story. After he fakes his own death, and haven escaped from his barbaric and pitiless father, what does Huck decide to do? He decides to stay hidden on an island with the care of absolute nobody. Instead of going back to the care of the local townsfolk (who could’ve hidden him from his father, if the need be), he decides to fulfill all of his teenage desires which leads to him going on many unnecessary adventures.

At face value, this book doesn’t really have an antagonist. Huck fell to his teenage desires, and gave up, pretty much his entire future, just for a few weeks of life threatening adventure. I wonder what Huck (and Tom) grew up to be like, someone needs to write a sequel…