Society vs. Heart in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

2117 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How is society reflected in literature

Society vs. Heart in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn Ernest Hemmingway once described a novel by Mark Twain as, “…it is the ‘one book’ from which ‘all modern American literature’ came from” (Railton). This story of fiction, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a remarkable story about a young boy growing up in a society that influences and pressures people into doing the so-called “right thing.” It is not very difficult to witness the parallels between the society Huck has grown up in and the society that influences the choices of people living today. However, what is it that gives society the power to draw guidelines to define the norms, trends, and what is morally right and wrong in life? Is it always the best choice to listen to your consciences, which is under the influence of society, or is it sometimes just as important to listen to your heart and what you think is right? Society has always denounced the acts of death and children running away from their homes. Huck can be seen as a morbid child as he is always talking about death and murder. Society would rather not have anything to do with people who have such a melancholic outlook on life. Living with years of torment by his drunkard father, Pap, Huck feared the day he would return to daunt his life. When Pap does return, he seizes Huck and drags him to a secluded cabin where Huck is boarded inside and unable to leave: This is where the dilemma occurs. In this position, Huck has a decision to make, either take note to the morals of society and listen to his conscience, which will result in more added years of pain and anguish from Pap, or Huck can listen to his heart and do what he thinks is best. Huck’s situation is so extreme (the mental and physical abuse from Pap) that he cannot take it anymore. He does what he thinks is best; Huck listens to heart rather than his conscience. In order to get away from Pap, Huck organizes an elaborate plan to arrange his own death and run away – both denounced by society - from the prison cell (cabin) and Pap. Huck, for the first time in his life, had felt what it is like to be free: “The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before” (Twain 46). Every incident where Huck is faced with a dilemma, the situation seems to intensify. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was first pub... ... middle of paper ... ... losing the acceptance of a social group, listening to the heart will leave individuals with a feeling of fulfillment and happiness. The socially unacceptable is only unacceptable because there are new ideas society is not use to: “Society opposes the good idea when it is not an accepted routine” (Growth Online). Individuals who listen to their heart have something extra than people who listen to their conscience, which is true self-respect: “The individual’s trust in himself [or herself] is superior in his [or her] trust in the society” (Growth Online). Works Cited "Growth Online." Social Influence on the Individual. 06 Apr. 2005 Hona, Leah. "Julie and the "Real World"." About. 08 2000. 06 Apr. 2005 King, Larry."Larry King Live." What's Driving the Popularity of `Reality TV'?. 27 2000. Transcript. 06 Apr 2005 Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. 07 Apr. 2005 . The Mormon Church has a poor record on free speech. 07 Dec 2002. 06 Apr. 2005 . Railton, Stephen. Mark Twain in His Times. 05 Apr. 2005 "Remembering Brian Deneke." Brian Deneke Memorial Committee. 05 Apr. 2005 Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Show More
Related

  • moralhf Comparing Moral Strength in Huckleberry Finn and On The Rainy River

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Integrity and Strength of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    1379 Words  | 3 Pages

    Huck has been raised in a high-class society where rules and morals are taught and enforced. He lives a very strict and proper life where honesty and adequacy is imposed. Huck being young minded and immature, often goes against these standards set for him, but are still very much a part of his decision-making ability and conscience. When faced to make a decision, Hucks head constantly runs through the morals he was taught. One of the major decisions Huck is faced with is keeping his word to Jim and accepting that Jim is a runaway. The society part of Hucks head automatically looks down upon it. Because Huck is shocked and surprised that Jim is a runaway and he is in his presence, reveals Hucks prejudice attitude that society has imposed on him. Huck is worried about what people will think of him and how society would react if they heard that Huck helped save a runaway slave. The unspoken rules th...

    Read More

  • Humanity Exposed in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    Humanity Exposed in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. & nbsp; People are the picture of contrast, sometimes strong and heroic, and other times weak and lamentable. In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain illustrates both the good and the disagreeable portions of human nature. The good side of humanity is shown through his depiction of people's courage. The irrationality of mankind is exposed through the actions of characters in the novel. The unproductive self-serving attitude of many people is also shown in Huck Finn.

    Read More

  • Huck Finn - Life on the raft vs land

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    Life on land was filled with many difficulties. There were many rules that Huck had to follow set by both the widow and his father. The widow’s main goal was to “civilize” Huck into a member of society. She expected Huck to go to school, wear clean clothes, sleep in his bed, and go to church. She just wanted him to be like a normal child of his age. Even though Huck bends the rules a bit and tries to sneak a smoke here and there, he eventually grows to like living under the widow’s protection. He proves this point when he says, "Living in a house, and sleeping in a bed, pulled on me pretty tight, mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods, sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a littl...

    Read More

  • Growth and Maturity in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

    1184 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of 4 Day School Weeks

    444 Words  | 1 Pages

    The other reason why we shouldn’t have a four school week is because students will have more time to get into trouble more.Half of high school and middle school students will get into drugs and crimes because they are unsupervised for a long time.If students get into crime and drugs at a young age they probably wouldn’t be able to get a job.Some of the students wouldn’t know it’s bad for them.The reason why is because some of the students don’t know it’s bad is because their parents or teachers haven’t told them about why it is bad.

    Read More

  • Essay on Identity in Huckleberry Finn

    1895 Words  | 4 Pages

    To put it in simpler terms, Huck belongs out under the stars where he will not be bound by the community. The next impedance in which Huck is faced with is the untimely return of his drunkard father. His father was merely stopping to steal money from his son. So since he did not care for his son much, Pap did not feel the least bit inclined to treat his son with any respect. So Huck once again faces confinement, except this time it is in a log cabin.

    Read More

  • Hip Hop and the Recording Industry

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    These articles depict the controversies of the hip hop industry and how that makes it difficult for one to succeed. Many of these complications and disputes may be invisible to the population, but these articles take the time to reveal them.

    Read More

  • The Misunderstanding of Hip-Hop

    787 Words  | 2 Pages

    What most listeners do not understand is that a lot of hip-hop music is not understandable from the get-go. It takes intense analyzation of lyrics and an open mind to be able to understand what it is really about. Some people can’t understand what is being said just by listening with their ears, and they don’t bother to go study the lyrics. They then leave with the perception that hip-hop is chalk full of, well, nothing. One of the greatest rap lyricists of all time, Shawn Carter, also known as Jay-Z, says, “People don’t bother trying to get it. The problem is that so many people don’t even know how to listen to the music.” Mister Shawn Carter has also said that rap is poetry. He mentioned not to forget that the lyrics in the song were transmitted from feelings, thoughts and emotions to lyrics written on a piece of paper. He went on to say that if you hung that piece of paper up on a wall and someone went up and read it as it was, they’d say, “Wow, this is genius. This is poetry.” McHorter’s opinion on rap can and will be agreed upon by many, many people; however, this conclusion can only be reached without h...

    Read More

  • Hip Hop as an Industry

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    All of the articles dealt with hip hop as an industry and how that industry is portrayed to African Americans through the commercialization of hip hop and stereotypes in society. The articles also discuss how that portrayal influences the opinions of African Americans to others and themselves.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Selling Down: The Marketing Of The Hip-Hop Nation

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tanz is believable because he seems to be very knowledgeable about the issue. He tries to connect the audience with the advertisements and commercials that he uses by using his personal experiences. For instances, when he starts mentioning a T-Mobile’s commercial on pages 88-89, he says “They remind me of my own embarrassing attempts to prove myself as a full- fledged member of the hip- hop community”(89). He is using his personal experiences to help explain how hip- hop is used to get people’s attention, in this case the black guy from the commercial and him the

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Homosexuality In Samuel Allberry's Is God Anti-Gay

    1549 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although Paul only speaks to the Gentiles, his words encompass all sinners today. Since they rejected the knowledge of God, exchanging “natural” relations for “unnatural” ones, ‘God gave them over to shameful lusts’ (Romans 1:26). As Allberry states, ‘This is the present-day judgment against sin. We ask for a reality without him and he gives us a taster of it.’ Paul articulates a lengthy list of anti-social behaviours which results from this “giving over”, a list of every kind of wickedness that corrodes society and leads to further sin. The very fact that ‘homosexuality is listed among these acts indicates that it is, in itself, testimony to the warped natures of sinful humanity.’ Those who indulge in homosexual sin must be punished and Paul preaches the most ruthless punishment for those who commit this sin: death. However, many commentaries affirm that this is not literal death but rather the complete abandonment of God. As the Sangra Pagina commentary notes ‘Ultimately it is the underlying alienation from God, rather than the individual vices, that leads to the penalty of death and the death that is envisaged is not so much physical death… but death in the eschatological sense of permanent separation from

    Read More

  • Hip Hop Music Essay

    937 Words  | 2 Pages

    Major companies and organizations in the US fund artist projects and assume control over the artist’s production, performance, lyrics, and video images. Through endorsement deals, major businesses and hip-hop artists create a partnership that is destructive to their audiences in terms of influencing their mindset and driving the community towards a criminal direction. Most of the hip-hop artists in the mainstream are blacks, who are used by major businesses to promote stereotypes against the black Americans.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Homosexuality

    1228 Words  | 3 Pages

    The main historical writings, which damn homosexuals, come from Jewish authors. These authors did not know that (1) sexual orientation existed and (2) only knew gay relationships to be abusive. People today should know that sexual orientation is a real thing and all homosexual relations are not abusive. Identifying as homosexual also is not a means of idol worship like originally believed. Laws change as society changes. More information about gay partnerships emerges all the time, so the laws oppressing these people need to change with the times. There was a time women were viewed as completely inferior to men, this idea too has evolved and women now have a place in society. Finally, there is no such thing as an accurate interpretation of the Bible. There are as many interpretations of the Bible as there are people on earth, plus another million. To then add in other historical documents regarding homosexuality gives infinite beliefs on the ethics of homosexuality. The Bible itself is not clear on its definition of homosexuality, so Christians cannot use it as a defining source. Homosexuals should not be condemned based on ancient myths or for any other reason at

    Read More

  • Arguments Against Homosexuality

    785 Words  | 2 Pages

    On February 27, 2014 Daily News published an article on their web page called: Five arguments against gay marriage. In the article, author Seth Forman states his opinion on gay marriage. Forman says in the opening of the article “Putting gay unions on a legal par with heterosexual ones may radically alter our culture.” Forman then continues to provide his readers with five points explaining his position on the topic. His first statement is on religious freedom, this one of the main arguments against gay rights. The bible does not mention homosexuality specifically but it is evident that it is condemned. A passage in the Book of Leviticus identifies homosexuality as an abomination, and a detestable sin. Romans1:26-27 describes homosexual desires to be shameful. The bible also describes marriage and that it is to be between a man and a woman. Genesis 2:24:"Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." Forman quotes opponents in a Newsday editorial saying opponents “will be seen by future generations in much the same light as those who opposed school desegregation.” Forman’s second concern is the rights of children. He st...

    Read More

More about Society vs. Heart in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

Open Document