Huck Finn Quote

"We said there wasn't no home like a raft, after all. Other replaces do seem cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft." After Huck has spent time in numerous temporary living situations, it's incredible to hear him identify with the raft as his home. He had gone from living with the widower, to living with his father, to living along the river, to living in the wild for lack of a better term with Jim. He finds himself in the Grangerford's, where they live at a level above that which he is used to. "i lit out" is a constant phrase he uses throughout the book, and it seems that the raft is evidence that he accomplished this finally. He is constantly on the run, looking behind his shoulder and getting caught i the cross fire, quite literally when Miss Sophia goes to meet her father's enemies' son. But the freedom he finds on the raft with Jim, leaving that situation is what he has been looking for. I don't believe he was escaping a bad situation necessarily. I think it was more of him finding someone who he values as a person (Jim) and no longer being under someone's authority. Whether he meant smothered in the literal context, or figurative is at Twain's discretion. But I believe Huck felt smothered by the restrictions that the widower puts on him, that society tries to impress on him. He mentions having the river to themselves (him and Jim), I believe he just needed one person in his life to respect, and value and I think that's Jim.