Lies In Huckleberry Finn Analysis

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Cameron Ramey
Gilmore
American Literature
31 October 2017
Lies and Deceit in Huckleberry Finn

In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, there are; lies, incidents of mischief, and deep moments of trickery. Without these, the story would not be what is it now. These moments happy constantly, and throughout the book when one lie is unveiled, a new one seems to rise. Most of the characters in the novel, seems to have some sort of made up statement to keep either themselves safe, or another character in the book safe. But these lies make the characters who they are. Huck starts to lie because of his friend, Tom Sawyer who in the end is very deceitful, just to get a kick out of it. But Huck doesn’t always make things up to get himself
He learns through pranks that no matter how funny the joke is, someone could get injured as seen with Jim and when he gets bitten by the rattlesnake. He learns to judge the intent and outcome of a lie like other children do, and learns the consequences of what could happen if he lied (Mitchell, Thompson 289). He also learns to start considering others, and even shows some quality of having a high moral reasoning level (Developmental Psychology 141). Through society and his experiences with Jim, he learns that some white lies can also protect people as long as it does not lead up to more lies that would cause more problems (Ethics 378). Unlike most people who either draw the line between lying is immoral or morally wrong, he draws the line between harmful and harmless lying. His motives for lying changes over time, and changes from lying to escape punishment to lying to cover up for Jim, just like how other children change their motives over time (Stouthamer-Loeber 269). Through the Duke and the King, he learns the difference between immoral and morally correct lying. He sees that lying to deceive people and scam them out of their money is utterly wrong, and that lying like them would lead to appropriate consequences. Huck develops the ability to separate lies from sin and responsibility, and learns the value of his society (Ethics 878, Tomonari, Feiler 278). Because of his adventure down the journey, he finds his own identity after trying out numerous roles and learns the moral causes and effects of white lies, lying for protection, and lying for manipulation (Blair-Broker, Ernst

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