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The development of huck in the adventures of huckleberry finn
The development of huck in the adventures of huckleberry finn
The development of huck in the adventures of huckleberry finn
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Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”has become an extremely famous and meaningful book in American history. Huck’s story has become an American classic, largely because of the character development that takes place in the story. Throughout Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, Huck’s character grows and develops, from being an extremely innocent boy, to becoming an archetypal hero. Huck is heavily influenced by characters to become this. Throughout The events in the first portion of the story, Huck’s character slowly begins to develop into the role of an archetypal hero. During the first scenes of the story, Huck’s innocence is shown by his attitude to the widow douglas, and Miss Watson. This is shown by Twain’s writing …show more content…
Huck’s innocence is shown in this portion of the story by his lack of manners and respect to Miss Watson. He does not listen to authorities, which is typical of people huck’s age, but not typical of archetypal heroes. During this portion of the story, Huck sneaks out of the widow douglas’s house, to go on adventures with huck. This furthermore shows his immaturity. Huck’s innocence is also shown by his not understanding religion. When the widow tries to explain the concept of christianity, huck doesn't understand what she means. This is shown by “by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care anymore about him, because I don’t take no stock in dead people”(Twain2). Huck is an extremely logical thinker and can’t understand religion. While living with the widow douglas huck learns of his father,Pap, and is eventually kidnapped by him. Huck being kidnapped and held by Pap had a huge effect on his development as a character. Huck is influenced by his father, and begins to do everything Pap wants him not to do. An example of this is when Pap explains his unhappiness with huck going to school, so Huck …show more content…
"Openness to contingency: Huckleberry Finn and the morality of phronesis." Studies in the Humanities, vol. 31, no. 2, 2004, p. 173+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A138949322/GPS?u=avlr&sid=GPS&xid=2b7ea5c8. Accessed 5 May 2018.
Scott, Kevin Michael. "'There's more honor': reinterpreting Tom and the evasion in Huckleberry Finn." Studies in the Novel, vol. 37, no. 2, 2005, p. 187+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A134675182/GPS?u=avlr&sid=GPS&xid=57a8b2b3. Accessed 5 May 2018.
Semrau, Janusz. "De same ole Huck--America's speculum meditantis. A (p)re-view." Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: International Review of English Studies, vol. 42, 2006, p. 427+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A167977585/GPS?u=avlr&sid=GPS&xid=7d1e44c1. Accessed 7 May 2018. http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A134675182/GPS?u=avlr&sid=GPS&xid=57a8b2b3. Accessed 5 May 2018.
The Hartford Courant.1885: February 20. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xjOqOqKpRPKn1nlJU83hHDBZzI15s72_TR-hogMNWEE/edit. 4 May 2018
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.
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.
...ke." Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. An Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Sources Criticism. Ed. Sculley Bradley, et al. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1977. 421-22.
The Widow Douglas and Miss Watson try to "sivilize" Huck by making him stop all of his habits such as smoking, etc. They try to reverse all of his teaching from the first twelve years of his life and force him to become their stereotypical good boy. The rest of the town also refused to view him as good and he was considered undesirable. The only time that the town's people were able to put away their views of Huck was when there was excitement to be found, like when they all crowded on the steamboat to see if the cannons could bring Huck's body to the surface. Everyone got interested in him and tried to show that they cared about him, but this is only after he is presumed dead.
Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels ever written. The story is about Huck, a young boy who is coming of age and is escaping from his drunken father. Along the way he stumbles across Miss Watson's slave, Jim, who has run away because he overhead that he would be sold. Throughout the story, Huck is faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not to turn Jim in. Mark Twain has purposely placed these two polar opposites together in order to make a satire of the society's institution of slavery. Along the journey, Twain implies his values through Huck on slavery, the two-facedness of society, and represents ideas with the Mississippi River.
In order for Huck to alienate himself from society and reveal the hypocrisy of society’s values. Twain uses the morals of the widow Douglas to insure Huck’s understanding of how contradicting these morals really are. “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me” (Twain 1). It’s shown from this quote that the widow Douglas most truly believed that her moral values where the correct and civilized morals. But it wasn’t only the the widow Douglas who taught Huck, her sister Mrs. Watson taught Huck the ideas of Christianity and read stories from the Bible to him as well. They both tried to insure that Huck turn in to the what they believed was the civilized and religiously correct human being.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is a novel about a young man's search for identity. Huckleberry Finn goes through some changes and learns some life lessons throughout his journey. Huck changes from being just an immature boy at the beginning of the novel to being a more mature man who looks at things in a different perspective now.
Clemens, Samuel. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter, et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Lexington: Heath, 1994. 236-419.
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.
In the beginning of the novel, Huck Finn is a very unruly, uncivilized boy that heeds more to Tom Sawyer, a dreamer/adventurer, than to the polite, civilized manner of Widow Douglas and Miss Watson. Pap was an influential adult in Huck's life. Pap controlled Huck not with security, but with fear. A short time after Huck escapes from Pap's cabin, Huck realizes that the correct action would be to turn Jim into the authorities. Instead, Huck follows his heart, and many pleas by Jim, and concludes that he wants his best friend to be free. Huck's maturity is in full form when he derives many scandles to save he and Jim from almost certain capture. This is almost parallel in time frame to Huck's growing fondness of Jim. Huck now sees Jim as his best friend, not a 'nigger'; or a slave.
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.
At the beginning of the tale, Huck struggles between becoming ?sivilized? and doing what he pleases. He doesn?t want to listen to the rules that the Widow Douglas and her sister force upon him, even though he knows the widow only wants what is best for him. Miss Watson pushes Huck away from society even more through the way she treats him. She teaches him religion in such a dreary way that when she speaks of heaven and hell, Huck would rather go to hell than be in heaven with her: ?And she told all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there?I couldn?t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn?t try for it? (12-13). Huck is taught a very different kind of morality by his father who believes ?it warn?t no harm to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back?? (70). He likes his father?s idea of morality better because he is not yet mature enough to fully understand right and wrong, although living with the widow...
In Mark Twain's novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the adults in Huck's life play an important role in the development of the plot. Pap, Huck's father, constantly abuses the boy, never allowing him to become an intelligent or decent human being. He beats and attacks Huck whenever they meet up, and tries to destroy Huck's chances of having a normal life. This situation is balanced by several good role models and parent figures for Huck. Jim, the runaway slave, embraces Huck like a son, and shares his wide ranging knowledge with him. He also protects Huck on the journey down the river. Widow Douglas is another good role model for Huck. She tries to civilize him and make him respectable to society, while also being caring and compassionate. There is a stark contrast in the ways Huck is treated by adults, and all have an affect on him.
In the beginning of the story, Huck seems to feel at ease to be with his father instead of being with the widow, "It was kind of lazy and jolly, lying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no book nor study." (Twain 24) Yet, Hucks' father is not exactly the father figure a child would want. He's an abusive, "But by and by Pap got to handy with his hick'ry and I couldn't stand it. I was all over welts." (Twain 24) and he's not thoughtful of Huck. Once Huck figures his father is crazed and is an alcoholic, Twain, through Huck's eyes, gives readers a feeling of fear towards Huck's father. "There was Pap looking wild, and skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was crawling up his legs." (Twain 28) "Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him alone, and he rolled imself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying." (29)
Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered the great American Novel with its unorthodox writing style and controversial topics. In the selected passage, Huck struggles with his self-sense of morality. This paper will analyze a passage from Adventures of huckleberry Finn and will touch on the basic function of the passage, the connection between the passage from the rest of the book, and the interaction between form and content.
The above analyzes Huckleberry Finn as a person, as a moral example, and as a revolutionary. Huckleberry (without even knowing it) led an attack on slavery and moral injustice. Mark Twain’s satirical genius allowed him to produce The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This novel addresses many problems such as social injustice, race relations, and relation to society. Consequently Huckleberry Finn is still an extremely important work of literature today and will remain as such far into the future.