Initial Situation
Huck is hanging out with the Widow and Miss Watson.
This is where we start, and nothing big has happened yet. We do get the set-up, however, as we obtain a sense of what Huck and his environment are like.
Conflict
Huck’s fakes his own death to avoid his father. Jim runs away to avoid being sold down south.
The conflict’s pretty easy to see in this novel. Huck’s father is abusive and Huck fakes his own death to escape the man. Jim also needs to escape because his owners are planning on selling him. Unfortunately, by running away, Jim becomes the primary murder suspect. These conflicts really get things moving, literally and figuratively, as Huck and Jim have to leave home and take off down the river. The conflict is also a moral one, however, as Huck begins his epic struggle of conscience over whether or not to help free Jim.
Complication
Jim and Huck miss Cairo, and the duke and the king join the raft team.
There’s a marked change here. Huck and Jim are no longer moving toward a destination (Cairo), they’re now escaping trouble. Once the duke and king come into the mix, the crew seems to run from one difficulty right into the next. The conmen also complicate Huck’s moral struggles, since they ensnare him in their various scams and thefts.
Climax
Huck refuses to turn Jim in, deciding to help him to freedom even if it means going to hell.
This is the big moment we’ve been waiting for; Huck faces the conflict and the moral crisis is brought to its breaking point.
Suspense
Tom and Huck try to free Jim in the face of many self-made obstacles.
It seems we’re not out of the woods yet. The tension keeps rising as Tom complicates matters further and further. On top of that, you’ve got a hodgepodge of fake identities, which means the added suspense of the truth coming out at any moment. Jim’s life, of course, hangs in the balance once the escape goes down, which is suspense enough even aside from Tom getting shot.
Denouement
Tom doesn’t die from his bullet wound, and Jim was free the whole time anyway.
This is the part where all is revealed: Jim’s fate, Tom and Huck’s identity, and the deal with Pap being dead.
Conclusion
Hmm.
Right, about that…we can’t really tell you one way or another what the conclusion is. It could be that Tom is a total jerk and Huck hasn’t really learned anything from all this. It could be that the characters’ happy-go-lucky attitudes are satirical, or that they undermine the rest of the novel. What do you think?
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