Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Allusions 6 key examples

Tom Sawyer was written in 1876, nine years before Huckleberry Finn, and set in the same community. Huck is present in the book as one of Tom’s friends in his gang of boys. Though the titles of the two books suggest similar styles—adventurous coming-of-age novels of two young friends—the novels are, in reality, very different. Tom Sawyer centers on themes of boyhood rebellion along with fantasy and escape through play, whereas Huckleberry Finn focuses more on political themes like the horrors of slavery. Still, Twain did weave some social commentary into Tom Sawyer—raising questions about the hypocrisies of American society during the Second Great Awakening (an early 19th-century Protestant religious revival)—that he builds off of in Huckleberry Finn. It’s possible that Twain titled Huckleberry Finn the way he did in hopes that readers would expect another adventure novel and, instead, find searing moral critique.

This is a reference to Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes in the early 1600s and widely recognized as the first modern novel. Like Huckleberry Finn, Don Quixote tells the story of a lower-class man who goes on adventures, trying to stay committed to his own morality in a corrupt society. Don Quixote was also viewed as satirizing the romantic stories that came before it, similar to how Huck Finn satirizes the adventure stories that Tom likes so much. Tom’s reference to Don Quixote shows that he does not fully understand what the novel is about, and Huck pushing back against Tom’s romanticism shows that he is the one who is acting more in alignment with the protagonist's intentions.

Here, Huck alludes to Abolitionism, a pre-Civil War movement to end slavery, led by both Black and white Americans (primarily in the Northern states). While Black Abolitionists faced the brunt of physical violence, white Abolitionists also faced repercussions—including mob attacks—for publicly showing their support for Black people.

Though Huck is acting of his own self-interest here—he “ain’t agoing back there” to tell anyone about Jim because he himself wants to run away and be free from his abusive father, Pap—his declaration that he doesn’t care if he’s seen as an Abolitionist foreshadows his genuine desire and efforts to help Jim become free. Over the course of the novel, Huck moves from passively helping Jim move toward freedom to actively caring for him and doing whatever he can to keep him from being recaptured.

Pilgrim’s Progress is an allusion to an allegorical novel by English writer and preacher John Bunyan. Considered to be one of the most significant books of theological fiction, Pilgrim’s Progress tells the story of a Christian man’s journey to heaven. This book in the Grangerfords’ home is meant to signal the family’s hypocrisy: though they are educated and live in a fancy home full of spiritual and moral texts, their ongoing, murderous feud with the Shepherdsons is utterly barbaric. This is just one example of Twain’s commitment to raising questions about how moral ardent Christians really are.

It is worth noting that Twain even wrote a satirical travel book called The Innocents Abroad OR, The New Pilgrim’s Progress published 15 years before The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Though never confirmed by Twain, many scholars believe the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud to be an allusion to the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud. The Hatfields and McCoys were two real-life families who lived in the West Virginia-Kentucky area and were locked into a violent feud that spanned the latter half of the 19th century. Similar to Buck’s description of the fictional feud, the Hatfield-McCoy feud led to deaths of several different family members with no clear rationale apart from revenge.

By making an allusion to this real-life feud, Twain again points to the hypocrisy of American society. Each family thinks it is doing what is “right” and fails to see that everyone loses when they don’t think critically about what they’ve been taught. Unlike the feuding families, Huck develops a moral compass that is all his own.

Baron Franz von der Trenck, Giacomo Casanova, Benvenuto Cellini, and Henry IV of France are all people who escaped from prison, and whose stories of doing so have been romanticized. These allusions make it clear that Tom is more interested in having an adventure than in freeing Jim from being resold into slavery. Huck, on the other hand, has a relationship with Jim and wants to rescue him so that his friend can live a free life. This moment Highlights how Huck has become more ethical and practical as he’s grown up over the course of the novel—he is no longer the naïve boy who would go along with Tom’s plans just because Tom told him to. He is more discerning and has his own moral commitments.