What’s Up With the Title?

Clearly, the novel is about a kid named Huck Finn having some adventures. But the title belies the serious stuff going on here. "Adventures" sounds like kid stuff. In fact, it sounds a lot like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain’s earlier novel. This confuses people. Imagine if J.K. Rowling published Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and followed it up with Hermione and the Magic Cat, which wasn’t so much about a magic cat as about immigration controversies in the U.S. In fact, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, while it does have some adventures in it, is more about race and slavery in antebellum South.

So why the confusion? Why mess with us this way? Part of the charm and intrigue of the novel is that on the surface, it might seem to be a kid’s novel (like Tom Sawyer). While we do examine said weighty issues, we do so through the eyes of a naïve and endearing thirteen-year-old boy. So this is a two-tone novel, as you’ll realize just as soon as you read past the title.