Rocco D’Ambrosca: 10/08/2004
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the definition of the American novel. It is the quintessential American novel. Everything that has come out of American literature since its publication in 1884 has been influenced by it in one way or another. A great example of this is the musical comedy movie The Blues Brothers. There are two very big similarities between these two works of literature that show how Huck Finn (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) influenced the Blues Brothers (The Blues Brothers). The first is the characters and the second is the grand crazy adventure that they both go on. The following paragraphs will show just how much the Blues Brothers was influenced by Huck Finn.
The main characters Jake and Elwood, the Blues Brothers, are a direct comparison to Huck and Tom. Jake and Elwood like Huck and Tom have both grown up as orphans. They were both also raised by foster parents. The Blues Brothers were raised by nuns at the orphanage who tried to keep them respectable. Huck was also raised for sometime by Widow Douglas and Miss Watson who also tried to keep him well mannered and respectable. Both the Blues Brothers’ and Huck’s foster parents failed at raising them up to be good boys. Tom and Huck started a gang and the Blues Brothers started a band. Finally, Tom and Huck grew up together very close almost as brothers just as Jake and Elwood did.
The band members of the Blues Brothers band can be easily compared to Jim. In Huck Finn, Jim is dragged around along threw all of Huck’s journeys just as the band members have to go along with Jake and Elwood on all of their crazy adventures. He also has to put up with being captured and then all of the crazy elaborate things that Huck and Tom have him do before they finally have him escape. The band members are also like Jim in the fact that they always get paid back somehow and end up having a fun. The band members got to play the concert of their lives and also earned money for the shows they played while in the band. Jim had some fun on his adventures with Huck and ended up being freed from slavery and also got money from Tom for going along with the crazy escape plan.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim go off on a grand adventure. They travel up the river going from town to town. Along this great adventure they meet many people and have many experiences. The Blues Brothers also go on a great adventure. They meet up with all the band members and travel from town to town looking for shows to play. On their journey Huck and Jim meet two men called the Duke and the Dauphin who are con artists. The Duke and the Dauphin had one con where they put on a bogus show pretending to be real entertainers. The Blues Brothers band also did something similar to this when they played at the southern cowboy bar. The Blues Brothers band pretended to be another band that was supposed to play there. After stealing the other bands show they ran off without paying for any of the beer they drank during the show just as the Duke and the Dauphin ran off with all of the people’s money that they conned. Finally, Huck and Tom’s whole elaborate plan to help Jim escape is just like the Blues Brothers band’s last show. Huck and Tom dug a tunnel and laid out all kinds of crazy plans for the escape. The Blues Brothers also planned a great grand escape from the police by: tampering with the police car tires so that they blowout as they raced after them, coming in the back window so that they wouldn’t be stopped from going on stage to play, and finally escaping out of the trap door in the floor of the stage.
In conclusion, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn influenced The Blues Brothers through the movie’s characters and story plot. Jake and Elwood spawned from Huck and Tom, just as the band members are an iteration of Jim. Finally, the adventures of the Blues Brothers band reflect the adventures of Huck, Tom, and Jim.
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