Tuan, Jim, and Huck

Tuan, Jim, and HuckIn his essay entitled “Attachment to Homeland,” Yi-Fu Tuan discusses the human drive to attach emotion to place saying that, “attachment to homeland is a common human emotion... The more ties there are the stronger the emotional bond.” He goes on to say, “A people may become strongly attached to a natural feature because more than one tie yoke them to it.”
As a literature concentration, I can’t help but apply this to a very specific book in American Literature. For my colloquium, I used the Tuan text in relation to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to discuss this human relationship to a natural feature. Undoubtedly, the Mississippi River becomes a home for both Huck and Jim during their travels, and appropriately so.
Both Jim and Huck are ultimately displaced individuals, and ultimately, can only create a home outside of society’s bounds. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates discusses the symbiotic relationship between a place (or a home) and it’s people (or an individual.) He calls it duty. So often when we think of the concept of “home” we automatically imply a sense of ownership, “This is my home, or hometown, or favorite spot, and I can do whatever I want and be whoever I want while I’m here.” But we forget that home must be a symbiotic relationship because, inevitably, there will always be some sort of political or social institutions in place. If we don’t abide by the rules of home we can be forced out. This is how Huck and Jim become displaced individuals, and are forced to create a new home for themselves.
Huck, be it his personality or extenuating circumstances, can’t follow the rules set up for him by the Widow Douglas at the beginning of the book, nor can he stay under his “Pap’s” control. The river—the natural feature that Tuan talks about—becomes the ideal place for Huck to make a home, and it is no coincidence that by not being able to “abide by the rules of home” he can’t stay there (even if he’s not forcibly thrown out.)
The very same is true of Jim. As a slave, Jim is under countless restrictions and rules based on the rules of his role/class in society, and the “rules” of race relations in a slave state prior to the Civil War. But on the river Jim is no longer a slave.
Once Huck and Jim are aboard the raft, they can create entirely new rules. Getting back to the natural world (with only the rules of nature to adhere to) means that a young white child and a slave can become friends, can share personal experiences, and become equals where they never could within the bounds of their “civilized society.”

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