Adventures of Huckleberry Finn characters

Huckleberry Finn

Also known as Huck, Huckleberry, George Jackson, Sarah Williams, George Peters, Tom Sawyer

The novel's narrator, a shrewd, superstitious, plain-spoken boy of about thirteen or fourteen who fakes his own death to escape his abusive father and floats down the Mississippi on a raft with the runaway Jim. He wrestles with his conscience over helping Jim and adopts a string of false identities along the way.

As drawn: A barefoot boy of roughly thirteen or fourteen with a freckled, sunburned face and tangled, sandy hair usually stuffed under a battered old hat. He wears cast-off, oversized rags and patched clothes, often smudged with river mud, and looks uncomfortable whenever the widow puts him in stiff, starched 'civilized' clothes.

Bonds:JimTrusted companionsTomAdventure partnersWatsonPupil and tutorSallyProtective host

Jim

Also known as Miss Watson's Jim

Miss Watson's enslaved man, who runs away when he learns he is to be sold South and becomes Huck's companion and protector on the raft. Loyal, warm, deeply superstitious, and shrewder and more caring than the white society around him credits.

As drawn: A middle-aged, powerfully built Black man, tall enough to stand upright in the island cavern, with a broad, kind, expressive face and close-cropped hair. He wears rough, worn work clothes and a battered straw hat, the plain garb of an enslaved field and house hand.

Bonds:HuckleberryTrusted companionsDukeRaft companionsKingServantSallyCaretaker

Tom Sawyer

Also known as Tom, Sid Sawyer, Sid

Huck's book-loving, adventure-mad friend from town, who turns Jim's simple rescue into an elaborate romantic 'evasion' modeled on adventure novels. Reckless with others' safety in pursuit of style and spectacle.

As drawn: A boy about Huck's age but tidier and better dressed, with a lively, mischievous, bright-eyed face and brown hair. Town clothes rather than river rags mark him as a boy from a settled, respectable household.

Bonds:HuckleberryAdventure partnersSallyCousinsJudgeMoney trustee

Pap

Also known as pap, the old man, Pap Finn

Huck's violent, drunken father, who reappears to seize Huck's money, locks him in a riverside cabin, and beats him until Huck escapes by staging his own murder. A grasping, bigoted wreck of a man.

As drawn: A man of nearly fifty who looks it, with long, tangled, greasy black hair hanging down over his face and a long, mixed-up black beard, his eyes shining out as if from behind vines. His face is a ghastly, sickening fish-belly and tree-toad white; he wears filthy rags, a busted boot with two toes poking through, and an old black slouch hat with the top caved in.

Bonds:HuckleberryFather and sonJudgeLegal opponents

The Duke

Also known as duke, Duke of Bridgewater, Bilgewater, William Wilks

A young con man Huck and Jim take aboard the raft, who fraudulently claims to be the disinherited Duke of Bridgewater. He and the king swindle river towns with rigged shows and impostures, including posing as the brothers of the dead Peter Wilks.

As drawn: A shabby, sharp-featured young grifter of about thirty, thin-faced and quick-eyed, dressed in ragged clothes when first met but quick to deck himself out in stolen finery and theatrical costume for his cons.

Bonds:KingConfidence partnersJimRaft companionsMaryUncle-nieceHuckleberryCriminal partners

The King

Also known as king, Capet, the Dauphin, Harvey Wilks, Looy the Seventeen

An older con man who joins the raft claiming to be the lost Dauphin of France, the rightful king. Vain, greedy, and shameless, he leads the pair's cruelest swindles and finally sells Jim back into captivity for forty dollars.

As drawn: A bald-headed old man of about seventy with gray side-whiskers and a wrinkled, worn face, dressed in rags at first and later in stolen, ill-fitting fine clothes and a white beaver hat when playing at gentility.

Bonds:DukeConfidence partnersMaryUncle-nieceJimServantHuckleberryTraveling companions

Widow Douglas

Also known as the widow

The kindly, respectable widow who takes Huck in and tries to 'sivilize' him with regular hours, religion, and schooling at the story's start.

As drawn: A gentle, well-to-do older woman dressed in neat, sober, respectable clothing, the picture of small-town propriety.

Bonds:HuckleberryAdoptive guardian

Miss Watson

The Widow Douglas's prim, pious sister, who drills Huck in religion and spelling and owns Jim, whom she plans to sell South, prompting his flight.

As drawn: A tolerable slim, sharp-featured spinster who wears spectacles, thin and severe in manner and dress.

Bonds:HuckleberryPupil and tutorJimMaster and slave

Judge Thatcher

The town judge who safeguards the fortune Huck and Tom found, and who tries to protect Huck's money and interests from Pap.

As drawn: A dignified, prosperous older gentleman dressed in the sober, respectable clothes of a small-town judge.

Bonds:HuckleberryFinancial trusteeTomMoney trusteePapLegal opponents

Col. Grangerford

Also known as Colonel Grangerford

The proud Southern aristocrat and patriarch who takes Huck in, head of a family locked in a deadly, generations-old feud with the Shepherdsons.

As drawn: A very tall, very slim gentleman with a darkish-pale complexion showing no red, a clean-shaven thin face with the thinnest lips and nostrils, a high nose, heavy eyebrows, and the blackest eyes sunk deep as if looking out of caverns. His high forehead is framed by black, straight hair to his shoulders; he has long thin hands, wears a spotless white linen suit daily and a blue brass-buttoned tail-coat on Sundays, and carries a mahogany cane with a silver head.

Buck Grangerford

Also known as Buck

The Grangerford boy about Huck's own age who befriends him and is drawn into, and killed by, the family's feud with the Shepherdsons.

As drawn: A boy of about thirteen or fourteen, roughly Huck's size, with dark hair, dressed in the clothes of a well-off planter's son.

Mary Jane Wilks

Also known as Mary Jane

The eldest of the orphaned Wilks sisters, an open-hearted and generous young woman nearly cheated out of her inheritance by the king and duke, whom Huck resolves to help.

As drawn: A strikingly beautiful young woman of about nineteen with red hair and a bright, radiant face and eyes that light up like glory when she is glad.

Bonds:KingUncle-nieceDukeUncle-niece

Aunt Sally

Also known as Sally Phelps, Mrs. Phelps

Tom Sawyer's warm-hearted, easily flustered aunt at the Phelps farm, who mistakes Huck for Tom and is thrown into a frenzy by the boys' schemes to free Jim.

As drawn: A middle-aged farm wife in a plain dress and apron, quick to fluster and scold, forever bustling about her kitchen and household.

Bonds:TomCousinsJimCaretakerSilasSpousesHuckleberryProtective host

Uncle Silas

Also known as Silas Phelps

Aunt Sally's mild, absent-minded husband, a farmer and part-time preacher who unknowingly holds the captured Jim on his place.

As drawn: A gentle, elderly countryman, thin and gray, with the plain, worn clothes of a hard-working farmer-preacher and a distracted, kindly air.

Bonds:SallySpousesHuckleberryMistaken guest

Colonel Sherburn

Also known as Sherburn

The proud town aristocrat who guns down the harmless drunkard Boggs in the street, then single-handedly faces down and shames the lynch mob that comes for him.

As drawn: A big, fine-looking, well-dressed man of about fifty-five, calm and cold-eyed, who steps out coolly with a double-barrel gun in hand and never raises his voice.