Michael O'Connor, I must say that I balk at the notion that Huck's
"loyalty" to a friend is unparalleled in all of literature.  What we
witness at the end of the novel is not a Huch loyal to Jim, but one
*still* so intimidated by Tom Sawyer--and the ethos of boyish loyalty
not so much to *persons* but to a *code of behavior* embodied so starkly
in Tom--that he allows Tom nearly to get Jim killed.  When Jim *does* ago
(go) free, it is no thanks to Huck.  I would want to amend your words to
say that Twain portrays an "individual who has been 'educated' (read
corrupted) into acceptance of a powerful social institution (here
slavery . . .) [*not] being able to overcome and resist that 'education'
through personal experience and heart rendering (sic) loyalty to a friend."
Now, if any individual *is* gifted and heroic enough to *ought* to have
been able to overcome that education, it is Huck, but this is precisely
where I think the real nature of Twain's brilliance rests:  He deconstructs
the American cult of the individual able to rise above such a pernicious
'education' by showing a gifted individual's ultimate failure to do this,
and *thus* urges us to recognize the profoundly social and environmental,
rather than individual, solutions which such problems require.

The American cult of individual self-sufficiency is deconstructed in
similarly
brilliant fashion in E. L. Doctorow's *Billy Bathgate* (I do *not* mean the
movie!).

Thanks for hearing me out.

Michael McDonald