Huckleberry's exposure to the Grangefords in Mark Twain's
Huckleberry Finn conveys a situation that is no different than a
transition from ignorance to knowledge, from innocence to maturity, and from fantasy to
reality. It is safe to argue that the Grangeford experience is the rite of passage that
moves Huckleberry's character from a happy-go-lucky and oblivious child to an analytical
and more watchful young adult.
The Grangefords were Huck's
ideal of the grand and the great. He found politeness and class in their exaggerated
mannerisms; He saw grandiosity and elegance in their over-stuffed and tacky home, and he
saw a strong family unit in what was really a dysfunctional, and oddly- behaved,
lot.
Yet, as he notices the bloody feud between the
Grangefords and the Sheperdsons, he begins to question exactly what could create hatred
so extreme that it can live within the same two families from generation to
generation. To top it all, Huck witnesses how the two families bring their weapons even
to church, and keep a watchful eye over each other while they are also "worshipping
God". The tension must have been thick enough for Huck to sense, even as innocent as he
is, that what he is seeing is a deeply disturbed family, and not the great clan he had
imagined them to be.
This is what makes Huck analyze, for
the first time, that looks are deceiving, and that life cannot be taken at face value.
Perhaps this is why he, after finding Jim and re-embarking on his raft with him, Huck
says the words:
Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery,
but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a
raft.
What this means is
simple: Huck comes to the realization that home is not some place created by others to
provide for you, but that your home is what you make of it; Huck's home is his raft,
while Jim is the closest thing he has to family.
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