In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck's mother does not play a part in the story. However, Huck's father is one of the most evil and malevolent characters in the book. He is first mentioned in chapter 3. Huck recalls that he hasn't seen him in over a year, but he's glad of it because his father would beat him whenever he was sober enough to catch him. When a man turns up drowned in the river, the townspeople assume that it is Huck's father, who Huck refers to as Pap, but Huck doesn't think that it is.

At the end of chapter 4, after months have passed, Pap shows up in Huck's room. In chapter 5, Huck describes him as about 50 years old with long, greasy black hair, long whiskers, pale white skin, and shabby clothes and boots. He criticizes Huck's cleanliness and tells him to drop out of school. He pretends to reform to try to get custody of Huck, but whenever he can get some money, he spends it on alcohol and gets drunk. In chapter 6, his father kidnaps Huck, takes him to a remote cabin, locks him in, and beats him often until Huck is "all over welts." In a drunken rage, he even goes after Huck with a knife and tries to kill him.

In chapter 7, Huck finds a canoe, hides it, and fakes his own death by killing a pig and scattering the blood. He escapes his father by fleeing downriver to Jackson's Island, where in chapter 8 he finds Jim, Miss Watson's runaway slave. Eventually, Huck and Jim travel on to further adventures.