The Australian Huckleberry Finn

Just because Nemo is a clown fish doesn't mean that his story is all laughs and giggles; his entire journey is spent looking for freedom, whether it be from his oppressive father who won't let him leave the anemone (pap much?) or from the fish tank in order to avoid being given to a ruthless, new, brace-faced owner (I'm looking at you Miss Watson). Fish were not meant to be kept in tanks, just as slaves were not meant to be treated as property and have their own freedoms taken away from them. In the movie, the juxtaposition of Marlin's journey through the ocean, the pinnacle of sea creature freedom, alongside Nemo's captivity in the tank shows just how truly wrong it is to suppress an individual. The fish in the tank go crazy, they are uneducated, entertained by bubbles, and lack the wholesome life that the other fish are able to live out in the ocean. They do not hold their own destiny outside of the little box they are trapped in. Their origin stories are all but forgotten, and most of them have never been to the ocean at all; it is something spoken of in their folklore. Just as Phillis Wheatley wrote in her letter to Rev. Samson Occum, freedom "is impatient of oppression. Both in Huckleberry Finn and Finding Nemo, when faced with the oppression of being treated as property and traded away to a new owner where their life will be miserable, the best option is to escape. But being free means more than just escaping the tank: at the end of the movie the fish in the tank escape in plastic bags to the harbor, but are unable to escape their baggage. The result is a bunch of fish floating around in their own bubbles. Just because Jim is able to escape Miss Watson does not mean he is free to walk about until he has help from the abolitionists in the north. True freedom will never be able to be achieved without help from the suppressor to the suppressed. There needs to be a break in the cycle.