Upon discovering Pap, Huck’s first thoughts are of the beatings that Pap used to give him. When Huck sees Pap’s appearance, however, he immediately is put at ease. Pap’s disheveled appearance does not frighten Huck; instead, Pap appears as a clown or buffoon with exaggerated features. The appearance is similar to other exaggerated frontier characters in American humor, but Pap is more than a caricature; he is the most evil character in the novel, and he is white, “a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl.”
Pap’s threats are humorous because of the obvious irony; how could a father not be proud of his son learning to read? But as in Chapter 4, the threats are laced with the realization that Huck has been beaten by Pap before. Huck stays captive for the next couple of months and begins to enjoy his old life, free from manners, education, and religion. Huck’s “free” life with Pap, however, comes at the price of physical abuse.
Pap’s miserable character represents yet another negative element of society. Pap exudes bigotry and hate. His ludicrous tirade against the government and blacks is pathetically comical because of his obvious arrogance and ignorance and the slapstick humor involved in Huck’s description. The irony, however, is more painful than it is humorous because it symbolizes a common racist attitude built on ignorance and insecurity.
When Pap calls Huck the Angel of Death at the end of Chapter 6, the name appears to be one of Pap’s hallucinations. The label is important, however, and foreshadows the numerous deaths that Huck encounters as he escapes down the Mississippi.
