Huck's Conflicted Nature in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Huck's Conflicted Nature in Mark Twain’s The Adventures Of Huck Finn

Continuing what he had started in the first eleven chapters, Twain further develops Huck Finn's character through a series of events where Huck's decisions indicate his moral struggle. Adventures shows the dynamic movement of Huck's internal difficulty, illustrating his conflicted nature.

As juxtaposition to the fantasy of Tom Sawyer's gang, Huck encounters real robbers and murderers on the wrecked Walter Scott steamboat. After hearing their plans, Huck tells Jim, “If we find their boat we can put all of 'em in a bad fix -- for the Sheriff ’ll get 'em” (262); despite his developing nihilism , Huck decides to trap the men by stealing their boat. Here Huck has drastically affected the fate of the men, whether it be dying or being arrested, and eventually he realizes his responsibility: “I begun to worry about the men...I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix” (263). To remedy the situation in response to his sudden guilt, Huck employs (deceives) the captain of the ferryboat to rescue the men. Huck applauds his altruism, saying “I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would have done it” (265) but fails to realize his irony: “not many [people] would have” boarded the wreck in the first place, much less trapped the men. Regardless, Huck has shown he can act freely, but not free from his conscience, which will prove important later in the novel, specifically at the climax.

Prior to chapter twenty-five, the king and the duke had committed mild schemes, towards which Huck had been indifferent; once they plan to swindle the Wilks girls’ inheritance, however, Huc...

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...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.

Works Cited and Consulted

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.

Kaplan, Justin. "Born to Trouble: One Hundred Years of Huckleberry Finn." Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Eds. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. Boston: St. Martin's, 1995. 348-359.