While reading Huckleberry Finn, I was also rereading Herman Hesse's Siddhartha and couldn't help but compare Siddhartha's journey down the river to the journey of Huckleberry Finn on the river. river. Their two stories run parallel and many connections can be made during their travels. For both characters, the river element served as protection against the outside world. When the two characters are carried away by the rivers, they manage to escape the limits and constraints of their society. Siddhartha and Huck seek independence, away from home and the troubles of society. Siddhartha seeks to escape his isolation and pampered lifestyle in order to better understand the world and gain wisdom through experience. Similarly, Huck escapes into the woods to escape his home and his drunken father. He is imprisoned in his cabin and beaten daily and so he decides to escape from his reality. After traveling far and experiencing greed, hunger, and devastation (things he had never seen or felt at home), Siddhatha encounters a river which he uses to relieve his mind of the horrors of the outside world. He understands everything that can be learned from the river and for him the river represents the continuous flow of life, constantly evolving. "He then realizes that the main importance of the river is as a teacher and sacred center of learning for himself and Vasudeva. He continues to learn from the river and he can learn from it because the river represents everything and that in everything is the enlightenment that he has sought for many years as a disciple of teachers without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinions (87) Like Siddhartha, Huck Finn. also learns...... middle of paper...... actually frees them from their imprisonment on land However, in stark contrast, Huck recognizes that the river is "miles and miles wide." , every inch of which is “still and grandiose” (page 28) The river is a utopia for the two friends: they are accountable to no one while sailing peacefully. constantly behave as others think he should The river allows him to escape the chains of limitation imposed on him by the inhabitants of the earth. For example, Huck's view of the land as "cramped and stifling" (page 137) denotes the imprisonment characterized by society (societies constantly "eliminate" threats to the community by imprisoning them). When the world around the banks of the river threatens to intrude into the quiet, protected space that belongs only to them, it fails; the river takes the two to freedom.