“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and the Kingship of Humanity

As Huck says, kings don't do much but just sit around. An illustration from the 1885 edition of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Public Domain

NOTICE

Persons attempting to find a motive in the narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR

This warning famously graces the opening page of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” setting readers up for a narrative of gritty humor and grinning irony. Since Mr. Twain did not order readers away from attempting to find a theme, we propose that though this American epic is full of pariahs, vagabonds, and rapscallions, it is also a story about kings.

In the whole catalog of conjured heroes from Homer to Hemingway, not one is quite as kingly as Huckleberry Finn. And there never was such a king, either. Huck has royal poise, a regal demeanor, as he presides in straightforward fashion over his empire of mud and water.

It is not the kingdom, remember, that makes the king—it is the inspired soul that assumes a kingly view and vantage. Huck’s soul is as perceptive and receptive as a king’s, and at the same time, his soul resonates with our own on a primal level.

This is the very thing that reminds us that we—all of us, like Huck—are called to be kings. We are kings with Huckleberry Finn in the most elemental and existential sense as inheritors of the earth and caretakers of those amenities and subjects within our borders.

Mark Twain’s novel gives us a kingly character: Huckleberry Finn. The “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” 1884, by Mark Twain. Public Domain

Humanity’s Sovereignty

We are all kings, for as Huck points out regarding kings, “everything belongs to them,” and we, too, have been given the wealth of the world to command. Ancient myths and histories attest to the ancient kingship of our race. Even nursery rhymes such as R.L. Stevenson’s “Happy Thought” concur:

The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

The question of kingship is one of the reasons that “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is important for the common reader, for it explores the kingship of the common man. We are all overseers of a vast realm of sunsets and seas, of trees and towns, and all the things placed within our power of knowledge and action. The world is our oyster. If our spirits are attentive and appreciative enough, we are kings indeed.

Drawing of Huckleberry Finn by E.W. Kemble, from the original 1884 edition of the book “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Public Domain

Huckleberry Finn demonstrates this truth in his adventures, reminding us of what we all ought to know full well, but are often forgetful of: We are all empowered with the grace to observe, experience, and appreciate the rich goodness of creation, while reckoning the works of man true or false, right or wrong, lawful or unlawful.

Such reckonings demand a type of wisdom—wisdom that Huck has, if he has nothing else. But what else should a king really possess other than wisdom?

Wisdom is perhaps the first characteristic that comes to mind as proper for a king—the wisdom of “Sollermun,” as Huck and his friend Jim call him. Huckleberry has a natural intelligence, which is very different from Tom Sawyer’s imagination. That is to say, Huck sees things as they are, with a power that goes beyond mere sight. In short, Huck has vision.

As T.S. Eliot says of his fellow Missourian in his introduction to an edition, “[Huckleberry Finn] sees the real world; and he does not judge it—he allows it to judge itself.” And Jim approves: “Did ole King Sollermun do anything less with dat chile dat he ’uz gwyne to chop in two?” Is there anyone among us today who could be so wise as to allow the world to settle itself?

Huckleberry Finn and Jim on the raft, by E.W. Kemble, in the 1884 edition of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”  Public Domain

Huckleberry is too prudent and too solicitous to get in the way of such universal laws and natural processions. He pulses with love of the land, authority over the waters, and consideration for his fellows. Nowhere else can you find a sunrise described with such admiration and attention as by his clumsy eloquence. Nowhere else can you learn the terror of a river than from one who fearlessly stems its whirling eddies with a corncob pipe between his teeth. Nowhere can you find amusement and consideration for the follies and virtues of men and women than from his unsophisticated yet profound musings.

As kings ourselves, we should not shy away or close ourselves off from such mysteries. Huck’s majestic quality of witnessing the complexities of life and honestly turning them over in his mind bespeaks a type of ownership over them. He is the perfect blend of monarchical impassivity and childlike interest. If there is any element of tragedy (or comedy, for that matter) in this genre-defying tale, it is that the rafting philosopher-king is supremely unconscious of his sceptered sway.

Discernment in Looking at Men

While Huck appreciates the richness of creation, he knows that man is another thing: He knows fraud when he sees it. A stretch of his odyssey down the Mississippi involves two down-on-their-luck charlatans who brazenly pose themselves to the savvy youth as no less than a king and a duke. Their thin pantomime is intended to overwhelm the victims of their freeloading, but Huck quickly deciphers that they are low-down humbugs and keeps it to himself. He is too dispassionate to interfere with such deceptions, and too desirous of keeping peace in his domain.

It is only when their scams go so far as “to make a body ashamed of the human race” that Huck interferes, invisibly meting out justice, and casts the riches they intended to steal beyond their grasp. There is only so much hogwash that can be tolerated, and even kings have to “fuss with the parlyment” from time to time and take care of people and things.

(L–R) Huck, the Lost Dauphin (as he calls himself), the Duke, and Jim, as illustrated by Achille Sirouy. Public Domain

According to the wisdom of this noble river rat, there is little distinction between the prince and the pauper. When it comes to kings, after all, “they just set around. Except maybe when there’s a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around. …” Huck claims the independence of both the loafer and the lord. “Kings is kings, and you got to make allowances.”

He is aware of his surroundings like any street urchin but regards them like any sovereign, like any steward. Huck is a straight-faced observer of truth, enthroned on high even in the wreck of his rags, impervious to the wiles that seduce or the lies that corrupt. Huckleberry Finn beholds the world as the world and acts accordingly.

Can the same be said of us? Are we worthy successors of our crowns, we who seem bent on remaking the world in our own image? Can we claim wisdom, with the noise of the media and the milieu of modern culture? Have we lost the steward’s connection, the skipper’s watchful eye and consequent affection for the world that has been placed in our care? Have we betrayed our kingdom, our kingship?

Let us keep our eyes open and our spirts attentive with Huckleberry’s. In considering the role of kingship in this book, we should consider whether we as a people have strayed too far from the river that is our realm. A trek with Huckleberry Finn down the river that is his kingdom is enough to awaken to our royal birthright as human beings.