""(Twain, 75) Each time Huck and Jim escape to the river, it serves as a place for them to relax and recuperate from the last adventure that they had encountered. They seldom find trouble on the river, and both seem to enjoy just floating down the river. In contrast, the shore often times restricts Huck, and makes him feel lonely. " Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead.""(Twain, 16) On the land, all of the older people around Huck try to make him civilized and a decent young man. Huck has a free spirit and a very active imagination, so because of this, Huck doesn't like to be restrained or to have to follow the "rules- that society sets up for him. The river and the shore differ considerably in that Huck feels so differently when he occupies each one. .
Not only do these two setting differ drastically, they also are representative of the society and nature in the novel; the shore represents the people who treat each other so inhumanly, that Huck desperately wants to leave, and the river represents the part of nature that Huck wants to be a part of, the part that is free to flow in whichever way it is intended to. For example, Huck becomes ashamed of the human race in general when he witnesses the greed that the two men he is traveling with possess. " Well, if ever I struck anything like it, I'm a nigger. It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.""(Twain, 176) Through this quote, it is revealed that not only has Huck been taught racial slurs, but that he also despises the actions that are taking place around him. Huck is constantly in a struggle between good and evil, and he finds most of his trouble on the shore, with the Duke and Dauphin, Jim, Tom Sawyer, or even while alone. Furthermore, on the river Huck learns to appreciate nature and the nobility of the black slave, Jim that he shares the raft with.
