In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the main character Huck Finn goes through many moral changes. At the beginning, Huck is wild and carefree, playing jokes and being a guileful little fellow. When Huck's adventures grow to involve more people and new moral questions never before thought of, you can tell that Huck has started to change. By the time the story is almost over, most everyone can see a dramatic change in his view on "right and wrong", his opinions, and values. Serious events often times affect a person's morals, opinions, and values. This is lucidly shown in Huck as his adventures evolve further into seriousness. Though the book has it's serious points a lot through-out, Twain still added a punch of humor to keep everything interesting and entertaining. The reader's opinion may have change a little after reading of Huck's adventures and seeing his changings.
Huck's views on, "right and wrong" opinions, views of slavery, and the tricks he plays all show the beliefs that Huck withheld in the early part of the book. Hucks opinion of religion shows his lack of concern for serious things. When lectured on heaven and hell (by which he refers to by the "good" and "bad" place), Huck quickly decides that he wants to go to the "bad" place. He finds no interest in singing and praying to God, while the "bad" place calls to him as he hears that his friend Tom Sawyer is going to the "bad" place. His views of praying also reflect his lack of serious involvement. While you're supposed to pray for spiritual gifts, Huck just doesn't understand and then prays for fishing line. Huck is upset him when he finds that there are no fishing hooks to go with his line (Pg. 14) and takes prayer as a so-so kind of deal until faced with anoth...
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... about the fog and felt bad, to when he decided he would tell the truth to Mary Jane in a note. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an excellent example of how people can change over time and events. Huck generally feels that "humans are good and trustworthy, but you always have to watch out for people that always want to make a benefit at others loss". He is surprised by the fact that people have a tendency to do kind things (like when he helps Jim) and the fact that people can do terrible things to hurt others emotionally (as shown by the King and the Duke's heartless ways to get money). Huck talks with his concious (that little voice in the back of your head) to find what choice is better, turn in Jim or help Jim, and when he decides to help Mary Jane. So all in all Huck's good heart may have been buired beneath his deformed conscious but it prevailed in the end.
Initially, religion is appealing to Huck when the Widow Douglas tries teaching him: "After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers; and I was in a sweat to find out all about him" (220). Salvation seems possible to Huck, but he prefers to go to the "bad place" instead of spending eternity with Miss Watson (221); also, he abandons the concept of morality as a result of Miss Watson imposing it upon him. "I couldn't see no advantage about [helping others]...so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it anymore, but just let it go" (226). Huck does not realize that he is not a selfish person, but resolves to sacrifice salvation instead of living selflessly simply because of the source and c...
He gets into all sorts of conflicts that force him to battle and work his way out of them, and in turn, they propel his moral position’s evolvement. It is especially hard on Huck when it comes time to resolving moral dilemmas. He is always stuck between making his own moral decisions, be it conventional or not, or allowing influencers, his father, the widow, and society, to make the decisions for him. He can never let go of the guilt associated with taking the unconventional path and rejecting what society upholds because that is all he has ever been taught in his life. That is why it is hard to apologize to Jim at first, but given time Huck is able to muster the courage to do so because that is the right thing to do even when society says so otherwise. The same goes for helping a slave, such as Jim, escape to a free state where he can find the opportunity to reunite with his family. Ultimately, he violates the demands of society to do what is right and not contribute to the enslavement of another human being. And it is not until the end of the novel that Huck no longer views his decisions as moral failings, but instead as moral triumph because he stayed true to himself and not once did he allow society to dictate his
In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn you meet a rebellious young teen named Huck Finn. Huck is not your everyday hero especially in the beginning of the novel but slowly through the story his mature, responsible side comes out and he shows that he truly is the epitome of a hero. Huck is forced to make many crucial decisions, which could get him in serious trouble if not get him killed. Huck has natural intelligence, has street smarts, which are helpful along his adventure, and is assertive. Huck has always had to rely on himself to get through things because he is from the lowest levels of white society and his dad is known more or less as the `town drunk." So when Huck fakes his death and runs away to live on an island he is faced with yet another problem, which revolves around the controversial issue of the time of racism.
When one is young they must learn from their parents how to behave. A child's parents impose society's unspoken rules in hope that one day their child will inuitivly decerne wrong from right and make decisions based on their own judgment. These moral and ethical decisions will affect one for their entire life. In Mark Twains, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is faced with the decision of choosing to regard all he has been taught to save a friend, or listen and obey the morals that he has been raised with. In making his decision he is able to look at the situation maturely and grow to understand the moral imbalances society has. Hucks' decisions show his integrity and strength as a person to choose what his heart tells him to do, over his head.
Throughout Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck learns a variety of life lessons and improves as a person. Huck goes through a maturing process much different than most, he betters a conscience and begins to feel for humanity versus society. His trip down the river can be seen as a passage into manhood, where his character changes as he can relate with the river and nature.
Mark Twain throughout the book showed Huckleberry Finns personal growth on how he started from the bottom as a lonely, racist, immature kid who knew nothing to where he is now, by finally breaking away from society’s values he was taught in the beginning. He has alienated himself from the from that society and revealed how in fact these values were hypocritical. He realized that he can choose his own morals and that the one he chooses is the correct one.
When the middle of the novel comes around Huck begins to distinguish what is right and wrong in life and begins to mature and do the right thing. He shows this when he chooses not to partake in the scam that the King and the Duke are playing on the Wilks family. Instead he takes the money back from the King and Duke to hide it because he believes it is only fair to the family. "I'm letting him rob her of her money...I feel so ornery and low...I got to steal that money somehow; and I got to steal it some way that they wont suspicion I done it" (Twain 133) This shows that Huck is starting to see the line between games and real life.
The book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn tell the tale of a young boy who embarks on an adventure, one that leads him to find himself. Throughout the novel Huck develops a sense of morality that was always there to begin with, but not nearly as developed as it is by the end of the novel. Through living on his own, independent of societal and peer pressures, Huck is able to identify his own morals in defining what is 'right ' or 'wrong '.
Huck’s own psychological and moral traits are shaped by cultural, physical and geographical surroundings in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck has learned to take what he knows from society and apply it to his own set of values and own moral code. He is now able to distinguish good, bad, right, wrong, menace, and friend.
As a result, Twain utilizes Huck to depict an evolving character in the novel. This is made prominent by Huck’s changes in morals against racism and maturity by being able to understand what is right and what is wrong. Which is displayed through the experiences that Huck goes through in the novel. Just as a child gets older and starts to break away from the environment that was given to him and the morals bestowed upon him. When the child begins to create it’s own morals and starts to realize what is right from wrong the child is no longer a child it becomes a mature adult of it’s own in a society. Paralleling to Huck going from an immature child to a mature young adult in the end of the novel.
Huck struggles with himself through his moral beliefs. Huck struggles with himself because he grows up in the lower class and when he moves in with the Widow it is hard for him to adjust to the life of the upper class. Huck is speaking to the reader at the beginning of the novel about events that have occurred in the previous novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huck explains how he was adopted by The Widow Douglas and how she tried to civilize him. “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time … when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out … But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back” (2). This passage shows how Huck is being civilized by the widow and since he is from the lower class ...
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...
Religion is sarcastically reflected in Huckleberry Finn by Twain’s sense of storyline and the way his characters talk. A predominant theme, and probably one of Twain's favorites, is the mockery of religion. Twain tended to attack organized religion at every opportunity and the sarcastic character of Huck Finn is perfectly situated to allow him to do so. The attack on religion can already be seen in the first chapter, when Huck indicates that hell sounds like a lot more fun than heaven. This will continue throughout the novel, with one prominent scene occurring when the "King" convinces a religious community to give him money so he can "convert" his pirate friends.
Huck Finn does not fully understand religion. The widow tells him he can ask God for whatever he wants so he thinks of religion as asking God for specific items. Religion is actually a more spiritual concept, and Huck is not mature enough to realize this. This is apparent when he mentions “Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way.” This tells us that Huck is very confused about religion and takes things very literally. Huck was not brought up in church, so he knows little about God and religion. Another time when Huck took something too literally was when he went to Tom Sawyer's group to "rob and murder" people. Huck fully expected there to be real elephants and “A-rabs” at their destination. Tom Sawyer just wanted to pretend this was the case, when Huck actually was preparing himself to see elephants.
In the beginning, Huckleberry Finn hasn?t fully formed opinions on topics such as slavery. He is quite immature and content to just have ?adventures? with his friends. During his journey on the raft, he learns much more about himself through his dealings with others. He establishes his very own standards of right and wrong. Huck?s most important lessons are learned through Jim. He learns to see Jim as a person rather than as a slave: ?I knowed he was white inside? (263). More than any other character in the book, Jim is a catalyst for Huck?s maturity. Through Jim as well as other people he meets along the way, Huck becomes a more defined person who?s more fully himself. His development through the course of the novel proves The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to be a gradual journey toward growth and maturity.