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Chapter 4
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Slavery and Racism
Society and Hypocrisy
Religion and Superstition
Growing Up
Freedom
Summary
Analysis
Huck is scared at first to see the old, greasy, pale Pap sitting in his room because Pap “tanned,” or beat, him so often, but soon is not scared at all. Pap reprimands Huck for wearing nice clothes, and says that because Huck has learned to read and write he must think he’s better than his own father. Pap vows to take Huck’s “frills” out of him. Pap warns that Huck better stop going to school, because none of Huck’s family was educated, and, therefore, neither should Huck.
Far from offering Huck any kind of freedom from his strictly “sivilized” lifestyle, Pap imposes yet another kind of imprisonment, one based on class, where Huck is prevented from bettering and educating himself. This is counter-intuitive: Pap should want the best for his son, but he instead wants no better for Huck than what he himself had.
Active
Themes
Literary Devices
Quiz
Test Yourself
Pap tells Huck that he hears that Huck is rich now, but Huck says that he doesn’t have any money. Pap calls Huck a liar and says that he wants Huck’s money. Huck shells out his one dollar and Pap takes it to buy whiskey with.
Huck would rather enable Pap’s drinking by giving him money than be beat for not doing so, reflecting a pragmatic commitment to being responsible for oneself.
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Themes
Quiz
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The next day, Pap is drunk and tries to coerce Judge Thatcher into giving him Huck’s fortune, but the Judge refuses. Afterward, Judge Thatcher and the Widow go to a court of law to take Huck from Pap’s custody, but the new judge whom they appeal to, so-called because he is new to the court, says he wouldn’t take a son from his father. Judge Thatcher and the Widow are forced to quit the business, and Pap is granted custody of Huck.
Pap is pleased with the court’s custody ruling. He threatens to beat Huck “black and blue” unless Huck raises money for him. Huck borrows three dollars from Judge Thatcher, which Pap uses to get drunk, going around town “cussing and whooping and carrying on.” Pap is jailed for making such a ruckus.
Active
Themes
Quiz
Test Yourself
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After Pap is released, the new judge resolves to reform him. He invites Pap to supper, where he lectures Pap on temperance and other virtues till Pap begins to cry and swears that, though he has been a fool, he is going to turn his life around. The judge believes Pap, and has his whole family shake Pap’s hand, once “the hand of a hog,” but no more. All cry. The judge provides Pap with a room, but soon after Pap begins to desire alcohol. He climbs out of his room, trades his new coat for whiskey, and climbs back into the room. The next morning, he crawls out of the room again, drunk, breaks his arm, and almost freezes to death where he falls. The judge is upset, and says that Pap could be reformed “with a shot-gun, maybe,” but by no other means.
