An Analysis of the Most Important Scene Presented in Mark Twain’s Text Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“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 most important scene within Twain’s text is without a doubt the scene where Jim is sent to Mr. Phelps farm, and Huck has to choose between helping Jim and staying loyal to Miss Watson. During the latter half of the novel, one of the men they were previously traveling with pulls the ultimate scam and captures then sel...

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...their position in society, and therefore, Huck’s opinion on things such as slavery was formed by the world in which he lived. Therefore, the moment he meets up with Jim, his mind starts to tell him that he is doing something wrong, and as he continued to help Jim narrowly escape death, that nagging feeling grows to an intense level. This feeling peaks when Huckleberry is forced to make a decision between saving Jim, and reporting his location to Miss Watson. In other words, he has the choice between what society believes is right, and what society believes is wrong. This point in the text becomes so incredibly crucial because it is a moment where Huckleberry actually finds the strength to stand up against the opinions of the mass and make a competent decision based on logic, reason, and his own personal experiences, something that before, seemed impossible for him.