Huck Finn's Struggles With His Conscience Analysis

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Huck finds himself in a constant struggle between “heart and head.” He is often in situations where he knows what he is doing is either right or wrong, but his conscience pulls him in a different direction. Due to these experiences with his conscience, Huck learns many valuable lessons that help him see things through a different perspective. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn this allows him to experience things that most boys his age don’t, which then helps his maturation. Huck’s first main struggle with his conscience is in chapter fifteen when Jim and Huck get separated by the current. A tearful Jim finds Huck who lies to cover up his negligence. Jim then tells Huck that only “trash” lies. After hearing how badly Huck has hurt Jim’s feelings he decides to apologize and says, “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and …show more content…

Huck knows what he is doing is illegal and still, knowingly, continues to help him. “I begun to get it through my head that he was most free – and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn’t get it out of my conscience, no how or no way” (117). Here Huck explains how heavily this is setting in with him. He knows what he is doing is very illegal, and they could both get in a lot of trouble for it, but yet he still hasn’t turned him in. Huck thinks on this for a very long time and his situation becomes worse when Jim tells him what he plans to do after becoming a free man. Huck is mortified and ponders the idea of turning him in. However, later in the chapter Huck has the perfect opportunity to turn in Jim and doesn’t take it. Even though it is very clear in his mind that his protection of the runaway slave is illegal, due to the relationship that has been created on this journey, Huck can’t find it in his heart to turn in Jim. This shows Huck’s maturity slowly

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