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Huck Finn, a la Shmoop. It’s 1884. You and your buddy just found

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twelve thousand dollars in a cave. Your half is 6k.

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How much was six thousand dollars in those days? Adjusting for inflation, it would be

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about a gazillion dollars today.

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Give or take a zillion. So… awesome. You’re in the money.

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What’s the first thing you’re going to do with all this newfound fortune?

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New house? New ride? Mediterranean cruise?

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Give it all away? Ha, give it all away. Right.

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Wait, what?

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In Mark Twain’s Huck Finn, that is precisely what his title character does.

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What could have possessed him to do such a thing? Is he totally nuts?

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First of all, let’s be clear… he gave the cash to Judge Thatcher for safekeeping.

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So it was still technically his.

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But it wasn’t because he didn’t trust himself to not blow it all during a sale at

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Bloomingdale’s.

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It was because he truly did not want it. For a kid who lived his entire life in abject

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poverty…

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…that money could have come in handy.

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It could have kept him clothed and fed, and gone a long way to helping out his loved ones.

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Even if he didn’t want the pressure of wealth…

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…or was freaked out about Uncle Sam hitting him with some sort of “spelunking tax”…

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…he could have bought some really nice things for those who cared about him… or had cared

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for him. But Huck didn’t give the money to Judge

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Thatcher immediately.

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He did actually give the “sivilized” life the old college try.

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But the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, who were trying to turn Huck into… well, a real

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boy…

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…were driving him bonkers.

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He may have lived his entire life up to that point without much spending cash…

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…but at least there weren’t so many dang rules.

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Once Huck learned that money and responsibility were inextricably tied together…

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…all that green may have lost some of its former allure.

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But maybe some part of Huck realized that he wasn’t quite ready to make the mature

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decisions required of someone receiving such a windfall.

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Whatever excuses he made, could it be that he just wanted the money to be out of sight,

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out of mind…

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…until he was a bit older and would have a better idea what to do with it?

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After all, six thousand dollars buys an awful lot of penny candy. He could have wound up

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with a truly awful stomachache. Why did Huck say adieu to his fortune?

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Did he honestly dislike money and prefer being poor?

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Did he decide it wasn’t worth becoming “sivilized?”

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Or was this decision about the only mature one Huck ever made?

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Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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