The physical journey for a character is vital for personal growth and development. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Princess Bride by Rob Reiner are texts where the characters go on a physical journey and they grow as a person. Huckleberry Finn is about a white boy (Huckleberry Finn) who runs away and joins up with a runaway slave (Jim), so they both can be free while facing up to con artists, storms and separation. The Princess Bride is about Buttercup and her true love for the farm boy, Wesley, as pirates, hostages, torture and death try to stop them. Both texts have the universal theme of personal growth and the meaning of friendship. These themes are displayed through the use of point of view, extended metaphor, repetition and the use of irony.
The use of first person throughout the story allows Twain to show events as they happen from Huck’s point of view. In the episode involving a feud between two families, the Grangerford’s and the Shepherdson’s, Twain uses Huck as a direct eyewitness to highlight the barbarity of the bloodshed. As Huck witnesses the violence he narrates, “It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain't a-going to tell all that happened -- it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore that night to see such things” (Chapter 17). Comments like this in the first person view help to dramatizes events. This allows the author to accent the theme which he is trying to convey within his story. Additionally, by using the first person point of view Twain can show the narrator interacting with other characters more closely and realistically. Having the first person narration provides a characters point of view in the scene and helps them learn important lessons for their growth and development.
The use of repetition in the Princess Bride provides the audience with a feeling to help Inigo Montoya avenge his father. Inigo has been looking for the 6-fingered man who killed his father when he was 11 and left him scars. After 20 years of learning swordplay he finds that the man who killed his father is Count Rugen. In the sword fight Inigo gets stabbed in the stomach. To help him continue he repeats the lines that he always wanted to say to the Count. “Hello my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die. Hello my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die. Hello my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die. Hello my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die. Hello my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.” The repetition is important because it is giving him strength with each line. This strength helps him kill Count Rugen and help save Buttercup. The use of the repetition helps the character grow and develop by gaining strength and helping out his friends.
Another technique used in Huck Finn is an extended metaphor. For Huck and Jim, the Mississippi River is the ultimate symbol of freedom. Alone on their raft, they do not have to answer to anyone. The river carries them toward freedom: for Jim, toward the Free states; for Huck, away from his abusive father and the restrictive “sivilizing” of St. Petersburg. Much like the river itself, Huck and Jim are in flux, willing to change their attitudes about each other with little prompting. “We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed—only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all—that night, nor the next, nor the next.” (Chapter 12). The stillness of the river is letting Huck be free and
