At the beginning of each of the tales both Odysseus and Huck are held against their will, they manage to escape their initial environment but end up trapped again later. As mentioned above, at the beginning of Odysseus' tale, Calypso is held prisoner on her island because she wants to make him her husband, and although this scene is highly comparable to Pap holding Huck prisoner on an island for money, it can also be compared to the beginning of Huck's tale when he lives with the Widow Douglas. 2He welcomed me as a son and allowed me to civilize me." (Twain, page 1.) The two women holding the heroes hostage have similar reasoning behind them and both would represent huge changes in the characters' lifestyles, Calypso wants to marry Odysseus and similarly the Widow Douglas wants to tie Huck up and civilize him . Just as Odysseus shows Hermes his desire for freedom, Huck shows his desire for escape and his desire for freedom when he says “when I couldn't stand it anymore, I left. I was back in my old rags and my sugar barrel, and I was free and satisfied. (Twain, page 1.) The use of the sea or river as a means of transportation is another strong similarity between the two tales. Both heroes begin their journey by traveling on a wooden raft and eventually both find themselves in grave danger while traveling on the water. In the Odyssey Ulysses' men are punished by the Sun God for eating his livestock by being thrown into a sudden storm, Ulysses is thrown into the sea and after narrowly escaping is the only survivor. Similarly, Huck's encounter with a ferry is described as a sudden storm, coming suddenly out of nowhere. When the f... middle of paper... reliable narrator; he begins his novel by proving himself to be a character who sees things for what they really are. He acknowledges that some of the stories about himself and Tom Sawyer are exaggerated and even suggests that Tom Sawyer was an unreliable narrator, “that book was written by Mr. Mark Twain and told mostly the truth. There were things he exaggerated, but above all he told the truth. (Twain, page 4.) It seems possible that the reader will trust Huck, especially since he himself emphasizes that he has no reason to exaggerate his story. "I thought he believed in Arabs and elephants, but I think otherwise." (Twain, page 14.) Huckleberry Finn then is really quite a reliable narrator; he does not need to exaggerate parts of his tale and therefore tells his story exactly as it happened, he sees and tells the truth within his tale.