Leo Marx's Critique of Huckleberry Finn's Ending

Introduction and Marx's Central Argument

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has a controversial ending which, as stated in Leo Marx's 1995 analysis, resulted from three interrelated problems: an enforced happy ending, the author's fundamental betrayal of Huck's companion Jim (Twain, 1994), and the return of the tale to the playful mood reflected at the novel's start (Broussard, 2011). Marx states that Huckleberry becomes a powerless, naive, and subservient accomplice of Tom the robber (Marx, 1995, p. 296), akin to the eager boy prepared to become part of Tom's gang of thieves at the novel's outset.

This reading is persuasive. Tom's wild scheme holds no significance after the revelation that Jim had, all along, already been a liberated man. Further, Huck discovers his father is deceased and is therefore freed as well. Ultimately, Twain (1994) ties up loose ends, providing readers with a seemingly happy ending that nonetheless carries a dark undercurrent, one easily detected by attentive critics.

Huck's Regression at Phelps's Farm

Marx's view is not his alone. A number of readers are alarmed by the fact that, in the last chapters, both Huckleberry and Twain revert to their old ways. Huckleberry's arrival at Phelps's Farm creates a glaring contrast between the novel's ending and the preceding three-quarters of it. The story abruptly reverts to the playful mood encountered in the initial chapters, prior to Huck's father's return.

Before going downriver, Huckleberry is a mischievous boy with a somewhat questionable moral compass. He does not shy away from playing practical jokes that could cause real harm to others, as evidenced by his act of placing a dead rattlesnake on Jim's blanket. Yet his journey downriver helps Huck understand the growing complexities of a better life. His maturation is best portrayed through the deepening of his friendship with Jim and his inner conflict at the prospect of turning Jim in to the authorities. Upon arriving at Phelps's Farm and reuniting with Tom, however, everything Huck achieved on his journey appears to dissolve. Tom forces Huck to participate in an unnecessary and convoluted plot to set Jim free, reducing Jim's longing for freedom to the target of nonsensical theatrics (Marx, 1995, p. 295). The author's departure from the novel's earlier spirit becomes fully apparent when one reads, in detail, Twain's description of Tom's pointless plan, which consumes nearly seven chapters of the book (Broussard, 2011).

The events of the final chapters turn the story away from Huck's original objective — helping Jim gain his freedom — while also transforming Huck himself. As Marx aptly observes, Huck becomes a powerless, subservient, and naive accomplice of Tom's (Marx, 1995, p. 296), closely resembling the eager boy who was willing to join Tom's gang of thieves at the novel's opening.

Jim's Degradation in the Final Chapters

Critics who take issue with the tale's ending look beyond the comic surface of Tom's shenanigans to something far more troubling: Jim's degradation and emasculation. Marx (1995) observes that while journeying with Huck, Jim was a fully realized person, but in the final episode readers fail to see Jim as anything beyond a figure trapped in Tom's maze of nonsensical invention (p. 296).

Throughout the stay at Phelps's Farm, Jim appears more enchained than ever. He calmly accepts Tom's absurd escape plan, and when it seems that everything is falling apart, his allegiance to Tom and Huck drives him to return to a place where he will face certain arrest and re-enslavement. This docile return is captured in Huck's own words: "Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to know me, and they took him to the same cabin … and chained him again" (Twain, 1994, p. 214). His silence reflects a grim reality: Jim understood that his words carried no weight among white people. Marx (1995) remarks that Jim is reduced to the stereotypical, submissive Negro slave (p. 296), a fact made glaringly visible by the "calico dress" in which he appears at the story's end.

Conclusion

A moral motif remains, despite much appearing to have been lost in the end. This is principally because Jim's fate leaves scant hope for him, in both pre- and post-Civil War Deep South. The author is realistic rather than racist in the last few chapters. One can perfectly sympathize with readers' disappointment at how Jim's progress throughout the novel ultimately unravels, yet this reversion results directly from his return to American society. Jim epitomizes Black America, and through a perfect — if disastrous — ending, Twain demonstrates how society poses a profound threat to a Black man's progress.

Marx's (1995) review of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn's ending reveals that Jim's freedom at the story's close is largely nominal. Twain's realism is effectively obscured by Huck and Tom's maze of nonsensical invention (Marx, 1995, p. 296); nonetheless, that realism persists beneath the agreeable surface of the apparent happy ending. While Twain presented this unsettling finale to readers in 1885 — hoping to demonstrate how American society threatened Black progress — his tale continues to challenge readers today to consider whether they would accept such an ending from modern society as well (Broussard, 2011).

Bibliography

Broussard, R. (2011). The controversy over the ending. NSHSS, 2–7.

Eliot, T. S. (1995). The boy and the river: Without beginning or end. In G. Graff & J. Phelan (Eds.), Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A case study in critical controversy (pp. 286–290). St. Martin's.

Fishkin, S. F. (2006). Race and the politics of memory: Mark Twain and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Journal of American Studies, 40(2), 283–309.

Marx, L. (1995). Mr. Eliot, Mr. Trilling, and Huckleberry Finn. In G. Graff & J. Phelan (Eds.), Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A case study in critical controversy (pp. 290–305). St. Martin's.

Twain, M. (1994). Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Dover Publications.

Zhang, H. (2009). A journey of racial neutrality: The symbolic meaning of the Mississippi in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Kristianstad University College.