Conforming to all the rules society has placed is not important, what is important is knowing when it is okay to not follow a rule. People straying away from rules can have many possible outcomes, they are primarily as basic as making the right choice or making a mistake. Sometimes society’s rules are in the wrong, to be able to fix the problem what is needed are people who aren’t afraid to stand up to the rule.Society makes mistakes in the rules that are placed, and people have stood up to them. It is necessary to know when it is or is not okay to break a rule. It is okay to stand up to a rule if someone else is getting hurt, a group of people are being sectioned off or if the rule currently in place is endangering someone that have done …show more content…
Huckleberry Finn thought that it would be nice to stay with his Pap and not go to school, but later on he came the realization that maybe he had made the wrong choice. Pap has never been a good father, he always left for months at a time, and even when he is around he beats Huck and drinks. A lot is happening to make Huck realize how he is being treated is wrong. It takes Pap locking him in the house and leaving for days at a time, and Pap beating huck almost to death before Huck decides to leave. “Pap he hadn’t been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn’t want to see him no more… He used to always whale [beat] me when he was sober and could get his hands on me (11).” After Pap comes back and continues to beat Huck and make Huck work for him, He realizes he doesn’t have to stay and take the punishment. Huck makes a brave choice to not conform to the rules that were set out for him, and to leave even though the court tells him they would rather not break a family …show more content…
The second way Huck demonstrates when it was okay to break away was how he helps Jim. Once Jim and Huck start travelling to the free states together both have now strayed away from the rules, especially Huck. As a white individual Huck, by society’s rules, should be telling someone that He knows where Jim is. In these times a runaway slave is becoming more and more common, people are really trying to catch them and punish them. Society doing this only because someone is black is wrong. and deep down Huck knew this is wrong too. He stayed with Jim and they help each other many times along their adventure. One day, however, Jim tells Huck what he is going to do once he gets to the free states. “He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free state he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn’t sell them they’d get an ab’litionist to go and steal them(88).” By saying this to Huck, Jim scared him. Being scared Huck started to think that maybe he should turn Jim in to someone, which is what he has planned to do. It almost worked. Huck almost turns in Jim, however, he has a change of heart. “Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s’pose you’d ‘a’ done right and
Huck’s situation is so extreme (the mental and physical abuse from Pap) that he cannot take it anymore. He does what he thinks is best; Huck listens to heart rather than his conscience. In order to get away from Pap, Huck organizes an elaborate plan to arrange his own death and run away – both denounced by society - from the prison cell (cabin) and Pap. Huck, for the first time in his life, had felt what it is like to be free: “The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before” (Twain 46).
While living on the island he meets Jim who was a slave but Huck soon learns that he has ran off and now in the process of making his way up north to Canada. Here Huck is faced along with his first tough decision, to go with Jim and help him, or just go and tell the officials of a runaway slave and get the reward. Huck reluctantly joins Jim and promises him to get him to free land for the sake of a good adventure but he still feels guilty to be conversing with a runaway slave let alone help him escape. Along the way Huck has many challenges, which are just like this one. This is truly remarkable for a child to be able to break away from the influence of society and go with his heart and do what is right especially when it was considered wrong.
The main character in this story is Huck Finn, Finn is a young boy with many problems going on in life. Huck was in need of a father figure more then any thing else in life. He needed someone to talk to about anything. Huck's Pap was never there for him except maybe to give him a tanning. Huck's Pap thought that he was trying to out do him, because he went to school. "You've put on considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You think you're better'n your father, now don't you, because he can't? I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?-who told you you could" Pap scolded (p,26). Huck didn't like having to wear nice clothes, or even going to school, but the he had to go. "Starchy clothes-very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, don't you" Pap asked (p,26)?
In chapter 16, Huck goes through a moral conflict of whether he should turn Jim in or not. “I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me (89).'; Right off from the beginning, Huck wanted to turn Jim in because it was against society’s rules to help a slave escape and Huck knew it. But when Jim said that “Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole Jim’s got now (89),'; made helped Huck to grasp the concept that there is a friendship in the making. Even though Huck didn’t turn Jim in, he is till troubled by his conscience when the slave catchers were leaving because he knows it is wrong to help a slave. Still Huck cannot bring himself forward to tell on Jim, thus showing that his innate sense of right exceeds that of society.
In lieu of his escape, Jim emphasized his feelings of becoming a free man. Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom (p. 238). Huck came to the realization that Jim was escaping for a far different reason than he, and began to see this “nigger’s” freedom as his own fault; he was an accomplice. Huck’s conscience became plagued by the fact that Jim was escaping the custody of his rightful owner, and he was doing nothing to stop this. In Huck’s eyes, Jim was essentially the property of poor old Ms. Watson, who didn’t do anything less than teach Jim his manners and his books. Altogether, Huck felt that he was doing wrong by concealing this, and felt miserable to say the least.
Society establishes their own rules of morality, but would they be accepted in these days?
Before Huck sets out on his raft adventure, he is exposed to the values and morals of his poor, drunken father. Pap Finn instills a "Southern race prejudice" and leads Huck to believe "that he detests Abolitionists" (374). Huck comes into conflict with this philosophy as he journeys on the raft with Jim. He can not decide if he is wrong in helping Jim escape slavery or if the philosophy is wrong. The education of Huck also stirs some values from Pap. When Pap tells him that education is useless, Huck is confused because the Widow Douglas told him that education was important. As a result, Huck's values towards education are uncertain. Pap Finn, as a figure of the lower class, does his part to confuse the growing morals of his son.
Huck Finn learns from the actions of people around him, what kind of a person he is going to be. He is both part of the society and an outlier of society, and as such he is given the opportunity to make his own decisions about what is right and what is wrong. There are two main groups of characters that help Huck on his journey to moral maturation. The first group consists of Widow Douglas, Miss Watson, and the judge. They portray society and strict adherence to rules laid out by authority. The second group consists of Pap, the King, and the Duke. They represent outliers of society who have chosen to alienate themselves from civilized life and follow no rules. While these characters all extremely important in Huck’s moral development, perhaps the most significant character is Jim, who is both a fatherly figure to Huck as well as his parallel as far as limited power and desire to escape. Even though by the end of the novel, Huck still does not want to be a part of society, he has made a many choices for himself concerning morality. Because Huck is allowed to live a civilized life with the Widow Douglas, he is not alienated like his father, who effectively hates civilization because he cannot be a part of it. He is not treated like a total outsider and does not feel ignorant or left behind. On the other hand, because he does not start out being a true member of the society, he is able to think for himself and dismiss the rules authority figures say are correct. By the end of the novel, Huck is no longer a slave to the rules of authority, nor is he an ignorant outsider who looks out only for himself. This shows Huck’s moral and psychological development, rendering the description of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as a picaresq...
"What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right." Whether he knows it or not, the character Huck Finn is a perfect example of the truth in this quote. His struggle between knowing in his mind and what is legal, but feeling in his heart what is moral was predominant throughout the novel. Today, we'll examine three examples of situations when Huck had to decide for himself whether to follow the law, or his heart.
Huck Finn thinks about his father in an unusual way. Huck does not like his father, which makes sense because his father is a greedy drunk, however Huck still looks up to his father as a role model. Pap is not a good role model for Huck because of his history of abusing Huck and his random disappearances. When Pap tries to gain custody of his Huck, the judges side with him just because he is the father. This is shown when Huck says “The judge and the widow went to law to ge...
In the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the protagonist is faced with many moral dilemmas. Huckleberry Finn is barely an adolescent who is used to skipping school and horsing around with his friends. Regardless, he is forced to make decisions that no person should have to make, even though he is only a child. Huckleberry is an outstanding role model and a model of what a human being should represent. Even though Huck is surrounded by corruption and is led by examples that do not recognize right from wrong, he is still able to address nonconformity. He makes the most morally upstanding decisions while under stress and the disapproval of society. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about a young boy who grows up without the leadership of a father to guide him as he struggles with decisions that heavily impact those around him. Huckleberry makes the conscious decision to help a runaway slave escape to his freedom. He struggles with this decision for an extremely l...
Almost immediately we are introduced to the drunken, deranged man who is Huck?s father, Pap. Pap is an alcoholic who roams from place to place buying up booze and sleeping wherever he can. Huck has never viewed him as a real father figure because Pap has almost never been there for Huck, except when he is ?disciplining? him. Pap is uneducated and disapproves of Huck attending school. Pap tells Huck, "you're educated...You think your're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he can't?" (14) Huck puts up with Pap?s numerous beatings because he does not want to be the cause of any more controversies between himself and Pap. Huck explains, "If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way" (95). Pap?s addiction to alcohol is how Twain views the affect that alcohol can have on a person. He believes that alcohol is a money waster, can affect the sanity of people, and how it can turn even decent men into complete scoundrels.
... he now realizes that stealing property is bad. Since Huck and Tom, although in a drawn-out manner, free Jim it is implied that he regards Jim as a fellow human being, not a slave. Showing Huck this equality and fostering a friendship between him and Jim could only be done by this kind of physical journey, as the idea of equality was only in its infancy at the time and had not taken root with any southerner.
In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Pap is a horrible parent to Huck, and constantly berates him. When he hears about Huck's new 6000 dollar fortune, he comes back to town to get back his son and the money. He is furious when he finds that he cannot get the money, and he becomes even more enraged when he finds out that Huck is going to school and living a civilized life. He says to Huck
To put it in simpler terms, Huck belongs out under the stars where he will not be bound by the community. The next impedance in which Huck is faced with is the untimely return of his drunkard father. His father was merely stopping to steal money from his son. So since he did not care for his son much, Pap did not feel the least bit inclined to treat his son with any respect. So Huck once again faces confinement, except this time it is in a log cabin.