Huck Finn Comparison Essay Essay

The great American novel â€Å"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn† by Mark Twain is about a white southern raised child named Huck Finn and a runaway slave, Jim, running away together. This novel is similar in ways to that of the novel â€Å"The Great Gatsby† by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which is about â€Å"the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love Daisy Buchanan. †(Book Cover) The character Huckleberry Finn is similar to characters of â€Å"The Great Gatsby. † Huck Finn is similar to Jay Gatsby because of their lies about their families, their reasons for lying, and their frames of reference of what not to do. Huck Finn is also similar to Myrtle Wilson. This is due to the fact that both try to create and live their â€Å"adventurous fantasy† lives and also because while trying to make their fantasy a reality they quickly forget about important people and belongings. The character Huck Finn is similar to Jay Gatsby in two ways. The first way in which these characters are alike is between the lies they tell about their family. Huck Finn’s lies are about having a family and how â€Å"pap and me and all the family was living on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansaw,† (Twain 75). While Gatsby’s lies are about how he has no family and how is the son of â€Å"some wealthy people in the Middle West — all dead now. †(Fitzgerald 65). The major similarity of this is that they create these fantasy families because they are ashamed of their real family in a way which leads them to create their view of a good family. Besides Huck Finn’s and Gatsby’s similarity in lies and their reasoning behind lying, these characters are also similar because they use the same type of person as a frame of reference of what not to do or become. Jay Gatsby uses his deceased friend, Dan Cody, as his frame of reference. Dan Cody, when drunk, would commit acts of â€Å"savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon. †(Fitzgerald 100) and would have Gatsby jail him on the yacht because he knew what would happen once he became drunk enough. Gatsby barely drank anything because he saw firsthand what alcohol could turn you Prev Page into if you had enough of it in your system. Huck Finn uses his pap as his frame of reference of what not to do or become. Pap, while drunk, is exceptionally violent. Pap would chase Huck around the hut â€Å"with a clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Twain 22) and he would get â€Å"too handy with his hickory† (Twain 18) which left Huck â€Å"all over welts† (Twain 18). These frames of references of what not to become have helped the characters develop a more stable moral code. Other than Jay Gatsby, Huck Finn is also comparable to Myrtle Wilson in two ways. One characteristic these two characters have in common is that they dislike their real lives that they try to create and live these fantasy lives. Huck Finn never returns to reality and live his real life unless him and Jim are by themselves on the river. While he is on shore Huck always creates all these aliases with different backgrounds every time he meets new people or a new family. When Myrtle Wilson is with Tom Buchanan and her â€Å"friends† in the apartment-homes in the West Hundreds she creates the fabulous fantasy life where she is just so care free and rich. While she lives this fantasy life she lets Tom make fun of her husband by imagining a picture entitled â€Å"George B. Wilson at the Gas Pump. †(Fitzgerald 33). She pretends that she has money when Mrs. McKee compliments her on the dress she is wearing and Myrtle is just shrugging off because this is something she wears when she â€Å"don’t care what I look like† (Fitzgerald 31). In addition to their likeness in trying to live a fantasy life, Huck Finn and Myrtle share their ability to promptly forget about important people and belongings. This is evident with Myrtle when she buys the dog on her way to the apartment with Tom and Nick. As quickly as she buys the dog she forgets about it before the end of the party which is sitting on a table â€Å"looking with blind eyes through the smoke, and from time to time groaning faintly. †( Fitzgerald 37 ) and not once has she gone to check to see if it is out of water, food, or even tries to take it out of that type of environment. For Huck the person he forgets about is his loyal and caring friend Jim. Whenever Huck is living one of his adventurous fantasy lives he never takes a pause to think about what Jim is doing, feeling, what type of danger he might be in, or what he could be going through right now while he’s having Prev Page the time of his life or getting himself in deep trouble on the shore. Conclusively the great American novel â€Å"The Great Gatsby† by F. Scott Fitzgerald has characters that share characteristics with that of Huck Finn from the novel, â€Å"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn† by Mark Twain. Huckleberry Finn is like Jay Gatsby because they both lie about their family because they’re ashamed of their real on and want what they feel would be a better family for them. They’re also alike in the way that they use the same type of person as a frame of reference of what not to do, which helps them build a more durable moral code. Myrtle Wilson is also comparable to Huck Finn on account of that they try to create and live fantasy lives, and then they get so caught up in their fake lives that they forget about the important people and belongings in their lives.