Who is your Daddy? An essay on That Jim is a true father of Huck (from Clemens's "Huckleberry Finn")

Contains citations to other works         The father of a family is its supporter and leader. He loves and respects his children, and must be willing to sacrifice for them. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Huck's father has none of these traits. The father, Pap, is an abusive and drunk man. He treats Huck like a caged animal and not a son. Pap does not posses the qualities to be any kind …

…of the book, we that he does not deserve to be called a father, even though he is the biological parent. The second appearance of a father is a poor slave, Jim. At first, he does not seem to have the abilities of being a father, but over the course of the novel, he shoots down these inaccuracies. Between these two men, as stated by Lionel Trilling, 'In Jim he [Huck] finds his true father' (321).