Huckleberry Finn The name Huckleberry always struck me as odd. I have found out that the term “Huckleberry” was 19th-century slang for a person of no importance. In many ways, Jim and Huck were alike. Both were considered unimportant. They were both subject to white adults, Jim because he was a black man, and Huck because he was a child. The big difference was that Jim was subject to Huck because Huck was white. The …showed first 75 words of 288 total…

…showed last 75 words of 288 total…the boyhood summers that Clemens spent at his uncle’s house, he became friendly with Daniel. Huck was based on Clemens’ boyhood acquaintance Tom Blankenship; Tom was from a poor Hannibal family of 10, with a drunken father similar to Pap Finn; he was dirty, uneducated, and lived without authority; Twain characterized him as “the only really independent person - boy or man - in the community, and by consequence he was tranquilly and continuously happy…”