This study will examine the theme of friendship in Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The focus of the study will be the friendships between Dean and Sal in Kerouac and Huck and Jim in Twain. In different ways and for different reasons, all four characters stand in defiance of the conventional way of life. What makes their individual paths special is that they share them in friendships which deepen with time and experience. In addition, in both friendships there is what might be called a leader and a follower. Huck and Dean are the leaders, with Jim and Sal the followers. However, the two friendships do not always adhere strictly to these specific roles. In fact, the flexibility of these friendships adds to their attractiveness for the reader.
As Ann Charters writes in the Introduction to On the Road, Kerouac learned from Fitzgerald "the value of inventing a sympathetic narrator to tell the story of an American hero who fled his past to embrace what he imagined was the freedom of his future" (Kerouac xx). Sal not only narrates Dean's story, but also seeks to emulate his friend's liberated way of life. Dean is the leader of the two, but their developing friendship is what gives the book its spine, for the reader identifies not only with the seeking narrator and the liberated hero but also, and perhaps more importantly, with the intimate connection between the two men.
In the case of Huckleberry Finn, Huck, the leader of the friendship with Jim, is continually trying to outsmart, evade, and/or escape the constricting world of adults and conventional responsibilities. Jim, a runaway slave, puts Huck's constricted situation in a larger perspective, providing Huck's adventure with a deeper meaning than it would otherwise have. Running away from home and an abusive father, Huck inevitably becomes deeply involved in Jim's running away from the cruel and evil institution of slavery.
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