Ralph Waldo Emerson, a nineteenth century writer and a poet throughout all his works has convinced an idea of the presence of inner self reliance mechanism and presence of soul in each human being. People believing that such thing as soul and so called "sixth sense" or intuition, according to which each should live, exist, call themselves Emersonians, or Emersonian scholars. They are the followers of Emerson's philosophy, who look inside themselves for the answers, rather then seeking them in the outside world. A very similar search fro truth is described in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, where two people mistreated by the society are going down the Mississippi river on a spiritual quest. Huck and Jim are the ones in this novel whom we can call the disciples of Emerson's philosophy, looking for their way out with the help of inner light, because all lights of civilization have failed them.

The situation, in which the protagonist of the novel finds himself, is such that no person would ever wish to happen in one's life. He is a son of a town drunkard, his mother is dead, and therefore, he is mostly on his own. Huck is taken to Widow Douglas's house in order to get an education and to become more "civilized", as he is considered to be quite a savage person. Thus, Huck has his abusive ever drunk father on one side, and a "too civilized" Widow with all her rules, on the other. He likes neither of them. He escapes both in order to find his own new world where he would feel more comfortable. The symbolism in the book is very vivid, describing Huck's fleeing down the river. The river there being a division between the great society with all made up rules and Huck's new, not yet found, inner piece and conscious of his own which is not influenced by the outside convictions. Throughout the novel he meets face to face with all expressions of cruel life, with robbers and killers, with storms and other misfortunes. Huck is exposed to a lot of negative experience, but surprisingly he doesn't become an evil, people hating person, he rather becomes a more understanding and inner guided child-grown up.

The main helper and Huck's companion is Jim. Widow's escaped slave, who wants to reunite with his family. Jim's soul is aching for his loved ones, of course it was not a rare feeling for a slave, but not many were brave enough to run away from their masters in order to see their families as it even could cost them their life. However, Jim only follows what his heart tells him, although he feels that he lets down Widow Douglas. This feeling of remorse also indicates how thoughtful he was of people whom he cared for, even though they were his master. Certainly Jim's sorrow was caused by that society's values, of putting white race above the black one, he was born with such understanding and could not distance himself from this believe too far. All this kept in mind; Jim's remorse over deceiving the Widow and pressure of society, and an inevitable punishment if he is caught, we have one very courageous slave with an immense desire to be freely living with his family. At that time such desire was a mortal sin for a slave.

Both of them apart from each other are the warriors fighting against society. Together on their little floating raft they become soul mates in their quest for freedom. For each of them freedom means different thing, but both of them are led to their goal by inner calling of a better life, a renewed understanding of themselves. Through this quest they are acquiring new qualities and discover lots of things about civilization being actually far from it. Thus, Huck fighting his desire to give up Jim to Widow and never let him reunite with his family. In the closing chapter, however, Huck finally realizes that it would be morally wrong to rob Jim off of his freedom. This moral was not taken from surrounding society, but from the depth of his heart with the help of inner compass indicating good and bad. This realization came to Huck when Jim told him about Pap's death, "Doan' you 'member de house dat was float'n down de river, en dey wuz a man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn' let you come in? Well, den, you kin git yo' money when you wants it, kase dat wuz him." Suddenly, he knew that no one will abuse him and he has nothing to fear from now on. On the other hand Jim is playing a parental role, because he was caring enough to not tell Huck at first that the floating damaged body was that of Pap, not to let him look at his horrible face. Jim also has reached his goal by acquiring a family he has longed for, he becomes a spiritual father to Huck.

Everything in the novel points to the ultimate goal of the heroes of finding what is most important in their lives, and finding it regarding only the instruction of their natural instincts. The ending chapter proves that their choice was the only right, although it may seem that they still have to go through a lot of challenges and that battle is not yet won. Certainly, society will never give up its rules because that's how it controls people. In case of Huck and Jim, though, society no longer decides for them with whom to be friends and what priorities in life to have.

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