Teenagers everywhere have experienced an emotional bond with the characters Huckleberry Fin, Henry Fleming, and Holden Caulfield while reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, and The Catcher in the Rye. Huck's adventure down the Mississippi, Henry's challenging experience in the Civil War, and Holden's weekend of self examination in New York City present various views of the transition of the adolescent into adulthood. All three characters evolve from naive, innocent children to adult men, sharing their experiences, personal interactions, and emotions thus relating to the reader's own teenage years.
             Huckleberry Finn shares his story, a young boy running away from his oppressive father, as his many adventures chronicle his change into a man. Huck Finn grows up in the sense that he loses his youthful innocence and becomes a mature young man. His first step as a naive innocent child is the simple desire to escape from his abusive father, Pap. Huck is trying to escape his corrupt past, but on the river Huck still faces corruption and inevitably loses his innocent view of the world. Huck witnesses the Grangerforld and Shepahrdson feud, an angry lynch mob, and Duke and King tarred and feathered by the town's people. "It made me so sick I almost fell out of the tree. I ain't agoing to tell all that happened- it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wish I hadn't ever come ashore that night, to see such things (Twain, 87)." Huck is inexperienced and uneducated, but is expressing his true feelings that the human race is barbaric. Still trying to escape, Huck continues down the river. He is constantly challenged to question his society and the human race, and his final challenge comes when he is forced to make a moral decision over his dilemma about Jim. The prejudice and the hypocrisy of the society he has always known challenges the actions Huc...