The Evolution of Huckleberry Finn "It was easier to recognize the traits that Twain was contemptuous of, since the entire book was supposed to satirize society. But there were certain traits that Twain admired, too." (3) Twain showed that he admired morality in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn personified through Huck. "We have no real morals, but only artificial ones—morals created and preserved by the forced suppression of natural and healthy instinct."(4) Such instances include his not telling on Jim when he ran away, Huck returning the stolen money to the girls and Huck trying to escape from the King and the Duke after the burial. Twain chooses to have Huck evolve morally in the novel instead of giving him an outstanding sense of morals throughout the novel. There are three distinct phases of Huck's maturing process that can be found in the beginning, middle and end of the novel. Huckleberry Finn was raised in an environment in which he developed a deformed conscience. He was a fostered in an unpleasant atmosphere. "His traditions and environment pull him one way…"(1) His father known only as Pap was a drunk and would beat him constantly, when Pap was around. And since his father was not around for the majority of the time he didn't have a strong influence to tell him what was right and wrong. He did not care for his guardian, the Widow, very much. When she was telling Huck about heaven and hell he "couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going (heaven), so" he "made up" his "mind that" he "wouldn't try for it." Which again shows Huck's naïveté of the concepts of heaven and hell. His only real idol was Tom who shared the same deformed conscience and sense of immaturity that Huck did. Huck also had this sensation of immaturity and corrupt morals plainly because he didn't know any better. Where he was raised, slavery was not only accepted, it was condoned. Since he had no real morally upstanding role model, he never learned otherwise. Due to the numerous jeopardizing events that Huck was exposed to on both the river and on land he was forced to grow up very quickly. He was a very cunning boy. He constantly made up lies in order to get out of trouble. For example, when Huck met up with the men who were searching for runaway slaves, he made up a story about his father being on the raft with a severe case of smallpox.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the main character finds himself living in a society that does not suit him. Everywhere he looks there are people who value things that he sees as meaningless. Huck Finn feels trapped and begins his journey down the river in an effort to find someone or some place that will bring him happiness. Almost immediatly he finds this person in the form a run away slave. In this story, Huck and Jim are against the entire world, and every person they come in contact with has the potential to destroy their plans of happiness and freedom. Under these circumstances Huck is forced to tell many lies, but the only one he regrets is the one that he tells Jim. The biggest and most harmful lie Huck tells is when he fakes his own murder in his fathers shack. He goes through a great deal of trouble to make sure that people believe that he is dead, and it is not until the end of the novel that it becomes known to the people of his home town that he is actually alive. He had been a likable young boy, and people in the town had thought highly of him. This is evident from his relationship with adults like the widow and the judge. Jim even tells him 'I'uz powerful sorry you's killed, Huck, but I ain't no mo, now'. (1292) Based on Huck's consistent concern for others, it is likely that he would have written home to inform them that he was still alive if it had not been for his situation with Jim. However, he does not want to risk doing anything that might get Jim captured, so he writes no letter. Huck finds himself working against the world. He is not an immature boy that tells lies just for the sake of doing so, but rather he tells them in order to protect himself and also Jim. In the instance where he dresses up like a girl and speaks with the farmer's wife in an effort to find out what is being said about their situation, the information that he gets ultimately saves them from the capture of a building search party.
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 '.
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.
Huckleberry Finn, “Huck”, over the course of the novel, was faced with many obstacles that went into creating his moral compass. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins with Huck, a 12 year old boy heavily swayed by society and by Tom Sawyer, a fellow orphan. His opinions and depiction of right and wrong were so swindled to fit into society’s mold. Throughout the story Huck Finn’s moral compass undergoes a complete transformation in search of a new purpose in life. Huck was raised with very little guidance from an alcoholic father, of no mentorship. He was forced to live with Widow Douglas and with Miss Watson’s hypocritical values. Upon learning of God and Heaven from Widow Douglas, he remarks that he is unable to see the benefits of going
“She was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it.” (Finn, 12) From the moment Huckleberry Finn is introduced in Mark Twain’s text Tom Sawyer, it is beyond evident that he is a boy that is not like most in this society. Huck comes from one of the lowest levels of the white society in which he lives. The truth of the matter is that this is not at all Huck’s fault. His low place in society stems from the fact that his father is an excessive drunk, that disappears for large periods of time, and when he does surface, he spends almost all of that time alternating between being jailed and abusing Huck. Therefore, Huckleberry Finn has become a bit of a ruffian himself, spending a majority of his time homeless, floating along the river, smoking his pipe and running a small gang with one of his only friends, Tom Sawyer. Throughout the course of this text, we watch as Huck transforms from this mindset of very little capacity for competent judgment and a very narrow minded concept of what is right and what is wrong to one of very broad minded perspective with an incredibly complex idea of the differences between rights and wrong. Within Mark Twain’s text Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huckleberry undergoes a series of very intense events that ultimately lead to a complete change in the development of his character.
The book introduces Huck as the first person narrator which is important because it establishes clearly that this book is written from the point of view of a young, less than civilized character. His character emerges as a very literal and logical thinker who only believes what he can see with his own eyes. In this section Huck’s life with the Widow Douglas and her attempts to raise him as a civilized child sets up the main theme of this book which is the struggle or quest for freedom. Huck’s struggle for freedom from civilized society is paralleled by Jim’s struggle to escape from slavery. Irony as a key literary element in this novel is apparent in this chapter and is primarily expressed through Huck’s sarcasm. A major element of superstition is introduced and continues throughout the entire book. This superstition is used to give insight into Huck’s character, which is very naive and gullible, as well as foreshadow events. For example the killing of the spider in chapter 1 and, in a later chapter, the spilling of the salt does result in bad luck in the form of Pa coming home. Twain puts together an interesting juxtaposition of theft with honor when Tom Sawyer establishes his robber band with Huck and the other boys and they swear to their code of ethics. Interestingly, this is also paralleled at the end of the book when Tom is able to help steal Jim “honorably” because Jim is already a free man. Throughout this section, Huck’s character and personality is established. He is revealed as humble in that he constantly underplays his own intelligence. An example is when he plans his own death and then whi...
Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through much criticism and denunciation has become a well-respected novel. Through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy, Huckleberry Finn, Twain illustrates the controversy of racism and slavery during the aftermath of the Civil War. Since Huck is an adolescent, he is vulnerable and greatly influenced by the adults he meets during his coming of age. His expedition down the Mississippi steers him into the lives of a diverse group of inhabitants who have conflicting morals. Though he lacks valid morals, Huck demonstrates the potential of humanity as a pensive, sensitive individual rather than conforming to a repressive society. In these modes, the novel places Jim and Huck on pedestals where their views on morality, learning, and society are compared.
Mark Twain once described his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as “a struggle between a sound mind and a deformed conscience”. Throughout the novel, Huck wrestles with the disparity between his own developing morality and the twisted conscience of his society. In doing so, he becomes further distanced from society, both physically and mentally, eventually abandoning it in order to journey to the western frontier. By presenting the disgust of Huck, an outsider, at the state of society, Mark Twain is effectively able to critique the intolerance and hypocrisy of the Southern South. In doing so, Twain asserts that in order to exist as a truly moral being, one must escape from the chains of a diseased society.
In Mark Twain’s novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn, like most growing children, has many changes in his personality. Throughout the novel Huck constantly learns new things and, despite a few setbacks, he uses them to mature. Through this maturity, Huck becomes more caring and wise, unlike his blithe and childish personality in the beginning of the the novel. Twain characterizes Huck as any other child by telling us his path to maturity. Huck realizes who he is and what he believes.
Huck Finn, a narcissistic and unreliable young boy, slowly morphs into a courteous figure of respect and selflessness. After Pap abducts the young and civilized Huck, Huck descends into his old habits of lies and half-truths. However, upon helping a runaway slave escape, Huck regains morality and a sense of purpose. Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck lies to characters, casting the authenticity of the story into doubt but illustrating Huck’s gradual rejection of lying for himself and a shift towards lying for others.
In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain the main character, Huck Finn, grows and learns many lessons. Throughout my life I have learned many similar lessons. In addition, I have discovered that there is a relationship between Huck's life lessons and my life lessons. Also I have learned many different lessons that Huck was dispossessed from learning. Twain's character, Huckleberry Finn, and I can be compared and contrasted through lessons we both have learned and lessons that only I have learned. During my life I have learned that lessons are hard, complex, and above all else are universal. One lesson that Huck and I have shared in learning is that a person can choose to escape an unfair situation. Huck escaped his abusive father and was taken in by the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson. I too escaped an abusive father. When I was six years old my mother divorced my father and I decided to live with her. Another lesson that Huck learns is to be his own person. He learns this when he left Tom Sawyer and his gang for his own adventures. I learned this same lesson when some friends wanted to go to a concert on a night that I had school and a project due the next day. I did not go with them and even though my friends had fun, I was proud to be an individual. Additionally, Huck learns that friends are very important because they are always there for you. He and Jim become very close over their long trip down the river. They do things for each other that shows that they are friends. Tom helps Huck rescue their friend Jim from slavery. Huck and Tom free Jim because he is a good friend to them. I have also learned that friends are a tremendous part of my life. On various occasions, friends have helped me study for important tests. Consequently, Huck and I have learned similar important life lessons though the experiences were different. On the contrary, there are also a few lessons that I have learned that Huck has not learned. I have learned that you must deal with your problems instead of running away 12/19/98 from them.
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.
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.
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...
The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an extremely important work of literature that addresses many world problems such as: poverty, race relations, and our role in society. Although some of these issues are not as prevalent today as they were in the 1880s, the novel still sends an important satirical message to anyone who is willing hear this story. This essay will analyze Huckleberry Finn and its relation to society today; the main issues that are addressed include: Huckleberry’s growth as a moral and upstanding person, race relations between African-Americans and Caucasian-Americans including Huck’s relation to Jim and the issue of slavery, the role of society and an analysis of Huck’s role in society and society’s role in Huckleberry’s personality.