Bad Habits in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Picking just one bad habit is like getting only one piece of candy at Sweet Factory. Once I finally picked my bad habit I realized how badly I needed to work on it. Huck had a bad habit he needed to work on too. Maybe we didn't know about it or thought we could get rid of it easily. But were either of us going to work it out? In the book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, which we were reading in class, the main character Huck had many bad habits as well. But his one main bad habit was lying to himself and by doing this he broke the law, his moral code and the law of God. It all started after he fakes his own death and runs to an island where he finds a run away slave, Jim that worked for Miss Watson, his guardian's sister. Next they leave to find Cairo but as they float down the river they run into many hardships. While this is happening Huck is doing most of his lying to himself. This is very similar to my bad habit because during my month of trying to quit fighting with my mom I went through some very hard times holding back what I wanted to say. This was a very big hardship of mine. So I realized Huck and I had a lot in common. Huck's bad habit was first shown to us in chapter VIII when Huck tells Jim, "Well I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest injun I will." He is telling Jim he wont tell anyone that he ran away which means Huck is breaking the law of the land. We knows this because Huck also says "People would call me a low sown Ablitionist and despise me for keeping mum-but that don't make no difference." Huck again lies for Jim in chapter XVI when he is about to tell the men on the raft that Jim is with him but his conscience comes into play. When this happens he lies to these men and this is just adding more to his bad habit. Also in this chapter Huck breaks his own moral code. When him and Jim miss Cairo he says "There warn't anything to say. We both knowed well enough it was more work of the rattle-snake skin; so what was the use to talk about it?" This is breaking his own moral code because he didn't believe that a rattlesnake could bring bad luck. Then he broke the law of God in chapter XXXI when he said, "You can't pray a lie-I found that out." This is when Huck realized that he doesn't think what he was doing was wrong. Last in chapter XL Huck realizes that the colors of the skin really don't matter. So at the end Huck breaks through his bad habit. Well my bad habit basically started when my mom started telling me no. And I just wasn't going to take it. So I started talking back and I wouldn't stop until I got my way or hurt my mom. Which is really something I don't want to do. That's why I was hoping by trying to break this bad habit I wouldn't have to do it anymore. It started out pretty good I would be ready to fight or say something that might hurt my moms' feelings and I would catch myself. It started feeling better right away and my mom even noticed the change. But then I began to think less and less about it and it all started back up again. So I wrote in my journals about the change and how I didn't want it to go back but before I knew it my mom and I were fighting and it was the end of the month. Huck and I were alike because I broke my own moral code by being rude to my mom. I also broke the law of God because in the bible it says honor your father and mother and I don't think what I'm doing is considered that. Huck and I were different because Huck no longer had a bad habit and I still do. Well Huck worked his bad habit out and is probably feeling pretty good. However I'm still working on mine and I think maybe one day I might be free of this. So I'm going to keep on trying and if I ever do make it through this I will make sure to tell you. But until that day comes I'll always go for as many candies as I can get.
Huckleberry Finn lies quite frequently in tough situations to save Jim from being a slave again. Finn’s lying has become his defense mechanism on surviving through all of the adventures he has to go through. Huck first learned this style from his father, Pap Finn. In the beginning, readers get a first view at what Pap is like and how he deals with life. He steals, cheats and lies his way in every situation. Huck’s first influence was his father so that directly influenced his decisions. “Yes, he’s got a father, but you can’t never find him these days” (Twain 6).
In chapter 16, Huck goes through a moral conflict of whether he should turn Jim in or not. “I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me (89).'; Right off from the beginning, Huck wanted to turn Jim in because it was against society’s rules to help a slave escape and Huck knew it. But when Jim said that “Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole Jim’s got now (89),'; made helped Huck to grasp the concept that there is a friendship in the making. Even though Huck didn’t turn Jim in, he is till troubled by his conscience when the slave catchers were leaving because he knows it is wrong to help a slave. Still Huck cannot bring himself forward to tell on Jim, thus showing that his innate sense of right exceeds that of society.
Decades after the initial disasters of colonial Virginia were over; trouble still lurked on the horizon. In the mid seventeenth century - while Puritans were living in relative harmony with their Indian neighbors - Virginians were bogged down with internal corruption, chronic fighting with Indians, and the division of society into discrete social classes. This division was often accompanied with localized threats of violence, but some got out of hand, escalating towards the brink of civil war. Had cohesion not existed between the lower stratums of seventeenth century Chesapeake society, the transition from a labor force of indentured servants to one of slavery would have been much smoother. Yet, within half a century, a labor force had been redefined and race relations were changed forever.
The Virginia colony was advertised as a place that was “commendable and hopeful [in] every way” by the British (doc 8). The reality of life in Virginia for the early settlers, however, was very different. While it is true the land was plentiful and new opportunities were available, most did not have the opportunity to capitalize on those opportunities as they were busy trying not to die. The first colonists faced both internal and external threats as they tried to build a life in Virginia. Three constants of life in early Virginia were suffering, rigidity in government, and the permeation of religion in all things.
Much of Edmund Morgan's text is a narrative history; starting with the initial stirrings of the colonial drive in England at the end of the sixteenth century continuing through the beginning of the eighteenth century; in which the firm establishment of African slavery and the momentum towards American Revolution coincide. But American Slavery American Freedom also reaches beyond narrative: it seeks to explicate how race ideology was developed within the context of colonial Virginia and it clearly demonstrates how race and racism were used as tools for political mobilization; a concept that transcends that one specific time and place.
Gatsby had a very large influence in his race for the top. Dan Cody showed Gatsby a life of extreme elegance and women. That influenced Gatsby in his already growing Dream. Dan Cody spent his time with Gatsby prior to Gatsby making all his money and putting himself out to the world, as a man that had "made it" I guess you could say. It was from Dan Cody that Gatsby received that little extra drive he needed to push all the way.
Between 1606 and 1700, the settlers sponsored by the London Company sailed to Virginia in hopes of getting rich and obtaining land. These people became known as the settlers of England’s Virginia Colony. What the settlers experienced was nothing like the success that was imagined for “Virginia, Earth’s only paradise! (Doc A)” to hold. The challenges of Virginia can be illustrated by these 3 things: the lust for gold, tobacco, and the first few winters.
Huck rejects lying early in the novel, a testament to his successful training bestowed upon him by the Widow Douglass and other townspeople. Huck begins the story by lecturing the reader that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer contained lies about him, and that everyone has lied in his or her lives (11). Huck’s admittance of the lies contained in the previous book about him demonstrates his early dedication to truth in the novel. Later, Tom forces Huck to return to the Widow Douglass where he continues learning how to be “sivilized” (11). When Huck returns, the Widow Douglass teaches him the time when lying is appropriate, improving Huck’s sometimes unreliable moral directions. After Huck spends enough time with the Widow Douglass and her sister, Miss Watson, Huck begins enjoying the routine of his new life (26). Huck, a coarse character prior to the beginning of the novel, enjoys his education more and more, and displays promise for a cultured future. Prior to the arrival of Pap, Huck sells his money to Judge Thatcher avoiding telling his father a lie (27). Even though his father is an appalling man and an alcoholic, Huck respects him and avoids lying to him by selling Ju...
Many times in the book Huck actually comes face to face with telling on Jim but in the end doesn’t. The first incident occurred while being faced by two men looking for a runaway slave. He was directly faced with the choice of “doing the right thing'; or turning Jim in. He decides to do the wrong thing and tells the men he’s traveling with a white man. The next time is when he writes the note to Miss Watson telling her about Jim. After thinking he says “seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind';.
The book Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, has many themes that appear throughout the text. One such theme is that people must live outside of society to be truly free. If one lives outside of society, then they do not have to follow all of its laws and try to please everyone. They would not be held back by the fact that if they do something wrong, they would be punished for doing it.
Mark Twain creates a sense of the hysteria and confliction in this passage by instilling profound diction. In the second paragraph of chapter sixteen, Huck is “scorched” to near-oblivion of his morality by the idea of betraying Jim, revealing upon not only the instability of Huck but also the pureness and innocence that lies in his conflicting heart (Twain 87). Through this conviction one can understand just how tough of a position Huck is in for if he sets out to deny Jim his freedom, then he be no better than all of the crooked people he has met so far. However if Huck does not turn Jim in, then he goes against his entire upbringing by helping a black man escape and gain his freedom. Later on in the passage after Huck decides to set out on his plan of action to turn Jim in and hears Jim’s gratitude. A blow is hit to Huck’s “tuck” by feelings of guilt and confusion, showing his own uncertainty in the morality of his actions (Twain 89). By questioning his own decisions not only does Huck realizes unconsciously what action he will take but also gives an example of his critical nature for Huck has felt this guilt constantly and just is not ready to put this issue aside and give himself a break.
Throughout the course of the novel, as they travel down the river in search for freedom, Huck’s opinion of Jim changes. Initially Huck feels he should not be helping Jim to freedom and almost turns him into slave catchers. Huck says, “I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him”, the use of the idiom accentuating his over-eagerness to conform to society’s expectations by advocating slavery. Although painfully slowly for the reader Huck eventually recognises Jim’s equality with white men. “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger but I done it, and I warn’t even sorry for it afterward neither.
Kate, Stanley & Murrin, John; Colonial America, Essay in Politics and Social Development; U.N.C. Press; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; 1983.
The way Huck and Jim encounter each other on the island, draws parallels in their similar backgrounds. Huck is torn between a life of manners and etiquette and a dangerous life a freedom, and while Jim at an impasse because he is being sold into slavery farther away from his home and away from his family. Each choice, for both characters comes with a cost so they both decide to runaway, in an attempt to assert some control over their lives. After spending much time together, the pair establish a connection which at times Huck feels guilty about since it violates everything he was raised to believe. At a certain point, Huck considers turning Jim in by, writing a letter, but after recalling the goods times they shared, Huck exclaims, "All right, then, I 'll go to hell!” (Twain) and quickly tears up the letter. Twain depicts Huck and Jim 's eventually friendship as a source of emotional strife for Huck and Huck constantly has to decide whether to abandon Jim and turn him in or abandon his religious beliefs and stay with Jim. The ripping up of the letter that would have turned Jim in symbolizes the choice Huck 's has selected. For this moment onward, Huck is dedicated to keeping Jim from being sold back into slavery and has no intent on going back on his choice. While there are times, Huck pays attention to the color of Jim 's skin he believes that