The Role Of The Widow In Huck Finn

350 Words1 Page

To begin, Huck portrays a strong dislike for society and civilization. Only when he is ground to a structure or community does he run into problems or have qualms. This is most apparent in his relations with influential characters throughout the book. The Widow is a very important character in Huck’s early life, as she becomes his caretaker for quite some time. She “took [him] for her son” and attempted to “sivilize [him]; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when [he] couldn't stand it no longer,”(3) he broke away. Only after breaking away from these types of structures can Huck be free. The widows attempt to civilize Huck is forcing him onto an

Show More
Related

  • Society vs. Heart in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

    2117 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Turning Points In Huck Finn

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    He gets into all sorts of conflicts that force him to battle and work his way out of them, and in turn, they propel his moral position’s evolvement. It is especially hard on Huck when it comes time to resolving moral dilemmas. He is always stuck between making his own moral decisions, be it conventional or not, or allowing influencers, his father, the widow, and society, to make the decisions for him. He can never let go of the guilt associated with taking the unconventional path and rejecting what society upholds because that is all he has ever been taught in his life. That is why it is hard to apologize to Jim at first, but given time Huck is able to muster the courage to do so because that is the right thing to do even when society says so otherwise. The same goes for helping a slave, such as Jim, escape to a free state where he can find the opportunity to reunite with his family. Ultimately, he violates the demands of society to do what is right and not contribute to the enslavement of another human being. And it is not until the end of the novel that Huck no longer views his decisions as moral failings, but instead as moral triumph because he stayed true to himself and not once did he allow society to dictate his

    Read More

  • The Immature Huck Finn in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    1726 Words  | 4 Pages

    When we are first introduced to Huck, he is very immature. Refusing to give in to "civilized society," he is not making a mature decision; he is merely being stubborn. Huck is unable to be mature because his father has literally beaten into him his own values and beliefs. Because of his father, Huck has almost no self-confidence. He has been taught to shun society and is unable to make a decision to accept it because of the constant threat that his father may come...

    Read More

  • Free Huckleberry Finn Essays: Ignorance

    1302 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Widow Douglas and Miss Watson try to "sivilize" Huck by making him stop all of his habits such as smoking, etc. They try to reverse all of his teaching from the first twelve years of his life and force him to become their stereotypical good boy. The rest of the town also refused to view him as good and he was considered undesirable. The only time that the town's people were able to put away their views of Huck was when there was excitement to be found, like when they all crowded on the steamboat to see if the cannons could bring Huck's body to the surface. Everyone got interested in him and tried to show that they cared about him, but this is only after he is presumed dead.

    Read More

  • Adversity In Huck Finn's Life

    483 Words  | 1 Pages

    “Make the best o’ things the way you find ‘em, says I-that’s my motto. This ain’t no bad thing that we’ve struck here-plenty grub and an easy life-come, give us your hand, duke, and let’s all be friends” (Twain 124). Although this excerpt was taken from a con man in the story, it is an important quotation that is not to be overlooked. Twain wrote characters that have all faced oppression, such as Huck growing up with a complicated family life, or Jim who isn’t even treated as a human. But they all overcame their adversity, had remarkable attitudes, and found their personal freedom within the raft. Huck has had a childhood that has been anything but ordinary. He starts out in the home of the Widow Douglas and her sister who both try to civilize

    Read More

  • Huck Finn Analysis

    1013 Words  | 3 Pages

    -The man vs. man conflict is brought up many times throughout this story. The first that is posed is the conflict between Huckleberry and Pap. Pap is Huckleberry’s abusive biological father, and an alcoholic to boot. He first comes in and tries to steal his son’s fortune, just so he can get drunk. Huckleberry is kidnapped by his father for a short time, and during this is beaten many times. Huckleberry eventually escapes as he saws his way out of a shed with an old saw he finds. He then kills a pig to fake his own death and smears blood all over the shed so the story is more believable.

    Read More

  • Alienation of Huckleberry Finn in the Advertures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    In order for Huck to alienate himself from society and reveal the hypocrisy of society’s values. Twain uses the morals of the widow Douglas to insure Huck’s understanding of how contradicting these morals really are. “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me” (Twain 1). It’s shown from this quote that the widow Douglas most truly believed that her moral values where the correct and civilized morals. But it wasn’t only the the widow Douglas who taught Huck, her sister Mrs. Watson taught Huck the ideas of Christianity and read stories from the Bible to him as well. They both tried to insure that Huck turn in to the what they believed was the civilized and religiously correct human being.

    Read More

  • Rejection of Civilization in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    603 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck rejects "sivilized" life. He dreads the rules and conformities of society such as religion, school, and anything else that will eventually make him civilized. He feels cramped in his new surroundings at the Widow Douglas's house. He would rather be in his old rags and sugar-hogshead because he was free and satisfied. He felt out of place when he tried being "sivilized" because he grew up fending for himself and to him it felt really lonely. Huck Finn grew up living in the woods and pretty much raised himself because his pap was a drunk. He never had a civilized lifestyle and he believed that his way of living was good enough for him. He was free to do what ever he liked and that is how he learned to live. He did not believe in school because all you need to know to live is not found in a book that you read at school. He believed that you learned by living out in the wild. Huck would rather be an individual than conform to society. Huck would rather follow his heart then his head and because of this Huck is ruled as a bad person because in society your suppose to use your head. Huck is being penalized for his beliefs and he does not want to be apart of a lifestyle that does not support his ways. For instance his choice not to turn in Jim shows that Huck understands why Jim is escaping. Huck sees Jim as a friend not as a slave and so he truly is able to see that society's way of treaty Jim is wrong. Huck is portrayed as a boy who sees life at face value and not by the set "standards" of the "sivilized" society. The rejection of the "sivilized" lifestyles shows that Huck does not agree with it rules. Because of this, he is able to see life from different perspectives. He can sympathize with all the class in society. He learns to figure out what is morally correct and wrong. Through out his journey down the river, Huck is able to learn more about himself and others.

    Read More

  • The Character Huck Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    1412 Words  | 3 Pages

    Huck Finn, the main character of Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, travels down the Mississippi River in search of personal truth and freedom, which ironically he achieves by living a lie. Huck's journey causes him to wear a variety of disguises and masks to survive. Unfortunately however, the people he meets along the way wear disguises which they use to deceive and cheat the same society that Huck and Jim, a runaway slave, are trying to escape from. Jim must use his own cleverness, Huck's protection and disguises in order to avoid getting caught by society. Together, all these characters use disguises, which are lies in physical forms, to their advantage. Huck's motive is to escape the rules of a restricting society. The King and the Duke are con men who want only to cheat society and take what isn't theirs. Jim uses disguises for survival, to escape from social prejudice and unfair punishment.

    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

  • Role of Women in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout history women have been subject to sexual discrimination based on being the physically weaker gender and thus leading to society's negative view of women, there is no exception to the stigma cast on women in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. During the novel every character portraying a woman shows society's view on the role on women. The issue of sexism was never questioned by Mark Twain, which leads to another question--- how can such a powerful novel dealing with such a heated topic like racial prejudices remain totally neutral and bypass altogether sexual inequality?

    Read More

  • Huck Finn Passage Analysis

    1327 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered the great American Novel with its unorthodox writing style and controversial topics. In the selected passage, Huck struggles with his self-sense of morality. This paper will analyze a passage from Adventures of huckleberry Finn and will touch on the basic function of the passage, the connection between the passage from the rest of the book, and the interaction between form and content.

    Read More

  • The Nature of Hypocrisy in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

    1188 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the very beginning of the novel, there is an air of phoniness to the environments Huck is raised in, and his upbringing is the foundation for his ability to observe others’ discrepancies. He dislikes the stuffy rules in Widow Douglas’s home because they make little reasonable sense to him - for instance, Widow Douglas will not let him smoke because it is “a mean practice” and not “clean,” yet she chews tobacco, which Huck scoffs is alright because “she did it herself” (12). Huck observes little duplicities like this, yet does not judge them outright. And as uncomfortable as he was with the uptight style of living with Widow Douglas, he also finds little solace in the woods with his abusive father.... ...

    Read More

  • Conflict Between Nature And Civilization In Huckleberry Finn

    506 Words  | 2 Pages

    Huck relentlessly refuses to be civilized by Widow Douglass. As Huck explains “The Widow Douglass allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time. Considering how dismal regular and decend the widow was in all her ways; an so when I couldn’t stand the window no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar hogheads again, and was free and satisfied.” (11). Huck doesn’t like to be civilised. He feels much more free when he is in nature, and in his old rags. Even though Widow Douglass tries to civilize him, he always finds a way to escape, thus the theme civilization remaining at the mercy of nature.

    Read More

More about The Role Of The Widow In Huck Finn

Open Document