In Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn goes on a journey that results in his moral evolution. Twain uses this main character to show how hanging out with certain people can change one’s morals for the worse or the greater good. Having bad intentions in beginning of his adventure, Huck soon comes to realize what is truly right.
Basing his morals off of society and those around him, Huck obtains very little knowledge as to what is just. Tom Sawyer, Huck’s best friend, is one major character that influences Huck’s bad behavior. Easily influenced by Tom’s ideas, Huck decides to join a gang with him that’s filled with robbers and murderers. If any member was to betray the gang, they were to kill their family and,
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“mustn’t eat and mustn’t sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts.” (Twain 7). Instead of going against this awful idea of Tom’s, Huck goes along with it and enjoys the adventure. Shortly after he joins the gang, Huck’s pap appears, after disappearing for several years, and kidnaps him. Pap takes Huck to a cabin in the middle of the woods where he slowly conforms to pap’s beliefs. However, pap is a drunk, abusive, and racist father with very low morals. Therefore, Huck’s beliefs begin to become corrupt and once again, he becomes a follower. Before getting kidnapped, Huck went to church, school, had good morals, and had manners. After being trapped in the cabin for a couple of months however, Huck thought, “It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study.” (Twain 24). Now, Huck is living like a wild animal, following pap’s corrupt rules, and enjoys it way more than his great life before. Twain suggests, through these two characters who Huck seems to follow, that hanging out with the wrong people can easily influence one to conform to their beliefs and make bad decisions. After running away and finally taking orders from himself, Huck becomes his own person and obtains new beliefs.
His journey to a better person begins when he lies to Jim, a runaway slave, about getting lost in the fog. Huck tells Jim he dreamt the whole thing and Jim becomes upset and ashamed that Huck lied to him and tried to fool him like that. Realizing how hurt Jim is Huck says, “It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back.” (Twain 86). Instead of treating Jim like a slave, Huck treats him like a human and feels awful about his cruel prank. After this moment of realization, Huck begins to grow in his moral evolution by telling the truth for the first time. Two con artists travel with Huck to a small town and make an innocent family believe that the two frauds are the family’s dead relative’s brothers. Knowing that the two men are being manipulative, Huck’s, “heart ache[d] to see [the family] getting fooled and lied to so.” (Twain 182). Thus, his feeling of remorse and guilt leads him to tell the truth for the first time. Shortly after, Huck starts to gain the same empathy and guilt towards Jim. Guilty about stealing Jim from his owner, Miss Watson, Huck is torn between what is morally right or wrong. For a long time Huck contemplates whether he should return Jim or save him from becoming a slave again. On one hand, Huck can do the right thing and go to heaven, or he can do the wrong thing and go to hell. Finally, after praying
and trying to clear his conscience, Huck claims, “Alright, then, I’ll go to hell.” (Twain 214). This shows how Huck finally becomes his own person and follows his own beliefs, rather than conforming to his peers’ ideas. Seeing Jim as a human being, Huck decided that he would rather go to hell and get shamed by everyone than see Jim being treated like a slave. Twain uses this powerful quote to emphasize the fact that just because society has many beliefs, doesn’t mean that one can’t break away from that belief and create their own. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses Huckleberry Finn to deliver a very important message to the readers. People should embrace their own beliefs and not give in to what everyone else thinks. Just because society believes that some ideas are just, doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t challenge that idea with their beliefs.
Together, Huckleberry Finn and a runaway slave named Jim head south along the Mississippi during one summer. During their adventures, Huck has trouble with his conscience—he knows Jim is a runaway, and that the socially correct thing to do would be to turn him in and get him sent back to his owner. However, whenever the opportunity to do so arises, Huck finds it impossible to do. Near the end of the book, when Huck is out meandering and Jim is still on the raft in the river, Jim is captured by an old man as a runaway and gets sold for $40. It is here, at this point, that Huck has his largest moral dilemma. Should he let Jim remain captured, as he is legally the property of Miss Watson, or should he rescue the true friend who has stayed steadfastly and unwaveringly by his side? Huck does not want to remain “wicked,” as he himself calls it, so he writes a letter to Miss Watson informing her that her slave is being held by a Mr. Phelps down south of Pikesville. He cannot, though, bring himself to send the letter. He winds up ripping the letter to shreds, with the comment, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” (p. 207). He is willing to sacrifice his soul, and do a deed he believes he will be damned for, to save Jim, the runaway slave. It takes a character of great moral strength to do what he did.
Huck grows more apologetic upon the next prank he pulls on Jim. While traveling on the river, Huck and Jim reach a point in their path where a dense fog rolls in, causing them to lose their way and get separated from each other. Huck takes advantage of the opportunity given by this natural event and decides to play another trick on Jim (94). However, Jim did not handle it too well since he is worried sick. This post fog scene is one of many turning points of Huck’s moral development. He knows that it was wrong of him to make a fool of Jim because it made him feel so mean that he could kiss Jim’s foot (95). Although Huck did not mean it in a literal sense, what he said is powerful because he would have to bend over and lie close to the ground
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.
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.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain is about the great adventures that Huck finn has with his slave Jim on the Missouri River. The story tells not only about the adventures Huck has, but more of a deeper understanding of the society he lives in. Twain had Huck born into a low class society of white people; his father was a drunken bum and his mother was dead. He was adopted by the widow Douglas who tried to teach him morals, ethics, and manners that she thought fit in a civilized society. Huck never cared for these values and ran away to be free of them. During Huck’s adventure with Jim he unknowingly realized that he didn't agree with society’s values and could have his own assumptions and moral values. Twain uses this realization to show how the civilized and morally correct social values that was introduced to Huck was now the civilized and morally contradicting values.
In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain illustrates several traits that are common in mankind. Among these traits are those that are listed in this essay. Through characters in the story Twain shows humanity's innate courageousness. He demonstrates that individuals many times lack the ability to reason well. Also, Twain displays the selfishness pervasive in society. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, many aspects of the human race are depicted, and it is for this reason that this story has been, and will remain, a classic for the ages.
Gandhi stated that “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” (Hardiman 1). Though not considered trash, a novel such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn accurately portrays Gandhi’s proverb . It showcases humanity’s ability to make positive choices, however few individuals do not follow the same amicable path. The author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, enables the characters in his story to exhibit free will regardless of their ability to make negative or despicable choices. The protagonist, Huck, has an immense capacity of enacting upon positive decisions benefiting and aiding others, as well as treating people based upon
Conformity and the causation thereof is a common theme Mark Twain uses in his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Throughout the story the main character, Huck, enters different settings in which he is either taught how to think or left to his own devices to come to his own conclusions. He struggles to identify with the morals presented to him by society and as a result, cannot determine whether he should follow his own moralities. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain utilizes the characterization of Huck in and out of nature to demonstrate the psychological effects of nature versus nurture
...ndons his effort to escape society and its imposition (by becoming Tom Sawyer’s sidekick again). His conflicted nature serves as the novel’s tragic aspect: although he had resolved to decide his morality independent from society, Huck’s freedom will be limited once Aunt Sally adopts him, a result of his choice to comply with Tom instead of freeing Jim and leaving on the river, where they have both lived freely throughout the novel.
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.
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.
He was even disappointed when all the gang did was cause trouble at a Sunday school meeting. Later on in the novel, Huck is also faced with a moral dilemma when he comes across Jim, Miss Watson’s runaway slave. As they travel down the river, Huck mentions, “I began to get it through my head that he was most free—and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn’t get that out of my conscience, no how, no way.
On his many adventures, Huckleberry Finn encounters numerous situations in which his morality is tested or needs to be implemented. Huck has moral dilemmas to a degree, but he figures out the answer to his questions. He also figures out that sometimes, society has it all wrong, and that at times you just have to follow your heart. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Twain reveals that what is honorable is to follow your natural moral instincts, not what society and civilization say is moral.
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 ...
The way Huck and Jim encounter each other on the island, draws parallels in their similar backgrounds. Huck is torn between a life of manners and etiquette and a dangerous life a freedom, and while Jim at an impasse because he is being sold into slavery farther away from his home and away from his family. Each choice, for both characters comes with a cost so they both decide to runaway, in an attempt to assert some control over their lives. After spending much time together, the pair establish a connection which at times Huck feels guilty about since it violates everything he was raised to believe. At a certain point, Huck considers turning Jim in by, writing a letter, but after recalling the goods times they shared, Huck exclaims, "All right, then, I 'll go to hell!” (Twain) and quickly tears up the letter. Twain depicts Huck and Jim 's eventually friendship as a source of emotional strife for Huck and Huck constantly has to decide whether to abandon Jim and turn him in or abandon his religious beliefs and stay with Jim. The ripping up of the letter that would have turned Jim in symbolizes the choice Huck 's has selected. For this moment onward, Huck is dedicated to keeping Jim from being sold back into slavery and has no intent on going back on his choice. While there are times, Huck pays attention to the color of Jim 's skin he believes that