Huckleberry Finn: American Adam and Picaresque Hero

Huckleberry Finn: an epic story through an epic quest/journey in order to save his friend. The action is romantic, but throughout his journey along the Mississippi he encounters different characters from different social groups, which is realist. He resembles the Spanish pícaro Lázaro. This is the first American picaresque novel influenced by the Spanish picaresque tradition.

It is not a completely realist novel; it is a combination of realism, romanticism, and picaresque. The road novel/narrative is an American genre. He will remain throughout the novel the American Adam because he never stops; he is always on the move, he does not stay in one place, and he is always in motion. Due to this, he defines himself day by day. He is always creating himself.

Huckleberry Finn has been related to the myth of the American Adam but also to the picaresque hero and to the Quixote figure. The myth of the American Adam in Huckleberry Finn results from a creative and ironic crossing of the picaresque and the quixotic myths. Huckleberry Finn is not only a pícaro or a Quixote but also an Adam. The moral purity, idealism, and innocence of this figure is similar to Don Quixote. This is a character who is also in opposition to a society he has abandoned. He decides to embrace utopian values and he rejects cruelty and corruption.

He is a character on the move; he is in a permanent state of resistance to civilization and its corrupting effects. All the characters that represent this concept are solitary figures, outsiders; they do not only represent individualism but also marginality. These characters take refuge in the wilderness, in the forest, and also on the river. The river is also a marginal symbol separated from society, and then Huckleberry makes a trip to the Indian territories, which are also in the margins of civilization.

A picaresque novel, in general, is an early form of novel and usually a first-person narrative. These stories tell the adventures of a rogue—a marginal figure—who is a lowborn adventurer, and whose character drifts from one place to another, from one social environment to another, in an effort to survive.

Key Themes

• American Adam: renewal, innocence, and separation from corrupt society
• Picaresque elements: rogue protagonist, episodic adventures, social mobility
• Quixotic parallels: idealism, moral purity, and utopian rejection of cruelty
• River symbolism: marginal space, refuge, and movement
• Genre blending: realism, romanticism, and picaresque combined