Chapters 41-The Last

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has indeed many themes, but I think that one of the strongest themes displayed throughout the novel is racism. This novel was set back before slavery was abolished, therefore many people believed differently about blacks and other races; they believed that whites were superior to any other race. Huck was brought up believing this, so when he helped Jim to escape and head north he felt like he was doing the wrong thing. He thought that helping a "nigger" was immoral and that he would go to hell for it like when he wrote the letter that was to be sent to Miss Watson. "I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking how good it was all this happening so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell." He thought that if he didn't turn Jim in or tell his owner where he was that he would go to hell, but as the book progressed he began to doubt those morals. He, I guess you would say, put friendship first. Although he had an inner conflict and debated with himself for quite some time, he finally put his friendship with Jim before the morals that he had been taught. "All right, then, I'll go--to hell"--and tore it up. I think that this showed us that Huck knows what's right, but sometimes he is driven in the wrong direction. In the end though, he chose what was right and what he truly believed is right. I think that he changed his beliefs from the beginning of the novel to the end. Although he hasn't stated it, I think that he believes that slavery is wrong, that is why he wouldn't turn Jim in.

Chapters 39-40

In chapters 39-40 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom decided that Huck and he should make the shack that Jim is living in more like a dungeon. So Huck and Tom found snakes and rats and different kinds of bugs and let them loose in there. If I was Jim, I would have been really mad. How is he supposed to live in a place that is infested with rodents and slimy creatures? I wouldn't be able to sleep either with those creatures crawling all over me. How can he stand it? Why don't they just help him escape? The animals that were in the place that Jim was being held began to infest the Phelps' house.
Then Tom and Huck heard of Tom's Aunt and Uncle going to put Jim in the paper as a runaway nigger. They thought that Miss Watson would see the paper and discover that it was Jim, so Tom decided to write an anonymous letter to his Aunt and Uncle telling about how he was part of a gang and was going to steal Jim. Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas were baffled by this, and that night while Tom and Huck are upstairs, they invited some people over who brought guns. When Huck went downstairs to get some butter, he saw a lot of people gathered downstairs with pitchforks. After Huck got the butter, he look outside and realized what was going on. Then he went upstairs and told Tom what was going on. So they snuck downstairs and went outside and rescued Jim from his "shack." They crept outside and over the fence trying really hard not to make noise. Jim went first, then Huck, and then Tom. They were about over the fence when Tom got caught on the fence and made noise. The mob heard it and ran to where Tom was climbing the fence. They started to shoot at them and ended up hitting Tom.
After they had escaped the mob, Jim and Huck told Tom that he needed to go to the doctor because he would say that to them if they were the ones who had been shot. At first, Tom refused and said that he wasn't going to go to the doctor's because he didn't need one and he would be fine. Finally he gave into Jim and Huck and went to the doctor's.