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SUMMARY
Huck enters Mary Jane's room and finds her weeping. She had been packing her luggage and preparing to go to England with her "family" but had stopped midway. She is lamenting the fact that the slave family would never be together again. Seeing her plight, Huck feels very bad and assures her that he would do all he can to get the slaves back. He makes her promise that she would go to stay at her friend's house for a few days so that he can plan his strategy. He tells her the reality of the two frauds - starting from the young man in the steamboat, to the present day. Mary Jane is livid with anger and is ready to "tar and feather" them. But Huck pacifies her saying that the sale of the niggers or auction of the estate is meaningless as they are not the legal owners. He reasons that, Since she wouldn't 'be able to suppress her emotions, her anger would become evident and arouse the suspicion of her "uncles". He tells her here is another person (Jim) whom he wants to save and that is the reason why he cannot take any risk of letting the frauds know who has exposed the latter.
Once Mary Jane leaves for her friend's house, Huck tells the two sisters that she has gone to nurse a sick friend. The two frauds are almost through with the auction when a big crowd comes up with another "set o'heirs to old Peter Wilks".
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| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Chapter 28 |
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
These chapters symbolize a step further in Huck's emotional maturity. No doubt, initially, he joins hands with the two frauds but he draws a line, when the question is that of family integrity. He is, now, able to break away from the code of morality propounded by society. His decision to help the Wilks' sisters is not attributable to what society calls "right". It is due to his own scruples and a sense of "right" and "wrong". He cannot see the "fatherless and motherless girls, the "poor sweet lambs" being duped and is able to overcome his dilemma when his conscience stirs him. Huck's words, "I reckon a body that ups and tells the truth when he is in a tight place is taking considerable many resks, though ain't had no experience, and can't say for certain; but it looks so to me, anyway; and yet here's a case where I'm blest if it don't look to me like the truth is better and actually safer than a lie" cogently point towards his moral development.
Huck now feels more empathy for the "niggers" than he did earlier. It is a tear-jerking and poignant scene for Huck when he witnesses the niggers "hanging around each other's necks and crying". Even though he insinuates the slaves for having stolen the money, his essential goodness is revealed when he feels serene that he had "done the niggers no harm by it". Introducing the poignant scene, of the slaves holding on to each other's neck and crying, is probably another one of Twain's attempts to arouse the readers' resentment against members of the slave-holding society. The novelist wants to awaken the readers' empathy towards the niggers by linking up this scene with an erstwhile scene, where we find Jim lamenting the loss of his family members.
Huck's maturity, vis-a-vis his concern for Jim, is quite touching. He has second thoughts about exposing the imposters because, for Jim's sake, he is "fixed". He says to Mary Jane that he has to keep shut since there is "another person" (Jim) "who'd be in big trouble".
In order to validate Mary Jane's absence, Huck cooks up a story, an tells the sisters that she has gone to the Apthorps to call them for the auction. Huck feels he has done a "pretty neat" job and, for the first time he judges that he can do better than Tom Sawyer, notwithstanding the latter's style. Besides, moral progression, we also see Huck moving towards enhanced self-confidence. He reaches a stage where he develop the poise to reverse his own actions.