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Central theme of the novel huckleberry finn
Central theme of the novel huckleberry finn
Critical analysis of Huckleberry Finn
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Adventures Of Huck Finn And Moral Progress
The main character of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn undergoes a total moral transformation upon having to make life defining decisions throughout his journey for a new life. Huck emerges into the novel with an inferiority complex caused by living with a drunken and abusive father, and with the absence of any direction. It is at this point where Huck is first seen without any concept of morality. Fortunately, Huck is later assisted by the guidance of Jim, a runaway slave who joins him on his journey and helps Huck gain his own sense of morality. Throughout Huck's adventures, he is put into numerous situations where he must look within himself and use his own judgement to make fundamental decisions that will effect the morals of which Huck will carry with him throughout his life. Preceding the start of the novel, Miss Watson and the widow have been granted custody of Huck, an uncivilized boy who possesses no morals. Huck looks up to a boy named Tom Sawyer who has decided he is going to start a gang. In order for one to become a member, they must consent to the murdering of their families if they break the rules of the gang. It was at this time that one of the boys realized that Huck did not have a real family. They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or something to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to do- everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson-they could kill her (17-18). At this moment, Huck is at the peak of his immorality. A person with morals would not willingly sacrifice the life of someone else just in order to be part of a gang. It is at this point where Huck can now begin his journey of moral progression. Huck encounters his first major dilemma when he comes across the wrecked steamboat and three criminals. When Jim and Huck take the skiff for themselves, leaving the three robbers stranded, Huck realizes that he has left them to die.
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.
In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn you meet a rebellious young teen named Huck Finn. Huck is not your everyday hero especially in the beginning of the novel but slowly through the story his mature, responsible side comes out and he shows that he truly is the epitome of a hero. Huck is forced to make many crucial decisions, which could get him in serious trouble if not get him killed. Huck has natural intelligence, has street smarts, which are helpful along his adventure, and is assertive. Huck has always had to rely on himself to get through things because he is from the lowest levels of white society and his dad is known more or less as the `town drunk." So when Huck fakes his death and runs away to live on an island he is faced with yet another problem, which revolves around the controversial issue of the time of racism.
When one is young they must learn from their parents how to behave. A child's parents impose society's unspoken rules in hope that one day their child will inuitivly decerne wrong from right and make decisions based on their own judgment. These moral and ethical decisions will affect one for their entire life. In Mark Twains, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is faced with the decision of choosing to regard all he has been taught to save a friend, or listen and obey the morals that he has been raised with. In making his decision he is able to look at the situation maturely and grow to understand the moral imbalances society has. Hucks' decisions show his integrity and strength as a person to choose what his heart tells him to do, over his head.
Upon arriving at Cairo, Huck must decide if he should go along with society and turn Jim in as a runaway slave, or keep his promise to his friend, and see him through to freedom. Huck feels guilty not turning Jim in when he hears him talking about hiring an abolitionist to steal his family. He does not think it is right to help take away slaves from people that he doesn 't even know. To turn Jim in for these reasons would be the influence of society on Huck. Huck 's decision on this matter marks another major step in Huck 's moral progression, because he decides not to turn in Jim on his own. This is the first time he makes a decision all on his own based on his own morality. They stop at Grangerford’s Farm, in Tennessee, after the raft is temporality destroyed. With Huck busy with the Grangerford family, Jim was able to rebuild the raft. Huck just met the Grangerfords, but fits right in immediately. He later feels that someone should take the time to write poetry about Emmeline Grangerford, recently deceased, since she always took the time to write about other people who died. He even tries to write the poetry himself, but it doesn 't turn out right. Then he also sees people shooting at each other makes him sick to his stomach. He sees it as an act against humanity and he simply cannot relate or understand how humans can treat each other in such an uncivil
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain is about the great adventures that Huck finn has with his slave Jim on the Missouri River. The story tells not only about the adventures Huck has, but more of a deeper understanding of the society he lives in. Twain had Huck born into a low class society of white people; his father was a drunken bum and his mother was dead. He was adopted by the widow Douglas who tried to teach him morals, ethics, and manners that she thought fit in a civilized society. Huck never cared for these values and ran away to be free of them. During Huck’s adventure with Jim he unknowingly realized that he didn't agree with society’s values and could have his own assumptions and moral values. Twain uses this realization to show how the civilized and morally correct social values that was introduced to Huck was now the civilized and morally contradicting values.
The book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn tell the tale of a young boy who embarks on an adventure, one that leads him to find himself. Throughout the novel Huck develops a sense of morality that was always there to begin with, but not nearly as developed as it is by the end of the novel. Through living on his own, independent of societal and peer pressures, Huck is able to identify his own morals in defining what is 'right ' or 'wrong '.
Jim had run away from his abusive father and enabling small town to find himself traveling down the Mississippi on a raft. His traveling partner was a black slave, Jim. Wondering why Jim was there, Huck discovers that Jim had run away from his slave owner, Ms. Watson. Jim had spoken about his harsh life as a slave, and resented talk of being sold down to Orleans for a “big stack o’ money.” Huck felt that Jim’s escape was wrong, but kept his promise of secrecy, like any good friend would.
One of society's favorite figures of speech is that it takes an entire town to raise a child. Such is true in Mark Twain's, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Through Huck's journey down the Mississippi River, Twain illustrates the influence society has on the undeveloped morals. As Huckleberry travels he becomes "the impassive observer" and aware of the corruption in the values of society (330). Encountering these societies gives Huck a selective morality. No particular social class is left out of his observations. From the poor, lower class to the elite, upper class, Huck observes inconsistencies in morality. In the end, Huck realizes that society is imperfect and corrupt, which ultimately causes him to "light out for the Territory" (229). Huck Finn develops a selective morality from the corrupt social classes he encounters on the Mississippi River.
Pap Finn is the drunkard father of Huck. He is a miserable human being capable of hurting his son just to fulfill his drunkard lifestyle. He is the epitome of evil in the novel. Just before the novel closes, Tom told Huck that his father died, and he died drunk.
Being raised by a hateful ignorant racist Huckleberry Finn had no chance in living a normal loving life. Raised to hate, drink, and live in ignorance Huck's pap was a poison and Huck knew it.
...e to Miss Watson (224). Huck’s own morals replace the belief society gave him and convince him that turning in Jim would be wrong. As a result, he resolves that he will set Jim free again, and continues helping him.
Huck Finn learns from the actions of people around him, what kind of a person he is going to be. He is both part of the society and an outlier of society, and as such he is given the opportunity to make his own decisions about what is right and what is wrong. There are two main groups of characters that help Huck on his journey to moral maturation. The first group consists of Widow Douglas, Miss Watson, and the judge. They portray society and strict adherence to rules laid out by authority. The second group consists of Pap, the King, and the Duke. They represent outliers of society who have chosen to alienate themselves from civilized life and follow no rules. While these characters all extremely important in Huck’s moral development, perhaps the most significant character is Jim, who is both a fatherly figure to Huck as well as his parallel as far as limited power and desire to escape. Even though by the end of the novel, Huck still does not want to be a part of society, he has made a many choices for himself concerning morality. Because Huck is allowed to live a civilized life with the Widow Douglas, he is not alienated like his father, who effectively hates civilization because he cannot be a part of it. He is not treated like a total outsider and does not feel ignorant or left behind. On the other hand, because he does not start out being a true member of the society, he is able to think for himself and dismiss the rules authority figures say are correct. By the end of the novel, Huck is no longer a slave to the rules of authority, nor is he an ignorant outsider who looks out only for himself. This shows Huck’s moral and psychological development, rendering the description of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as a picaresq...
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.
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...
Along with the raft, the river represents the path of life and how it can turn in many unexpected ways and how obstacles can get in the way of things at any time. During Huck and Jim’s journey along the Mississippi, obstacles in the form of troublesome slave hunters and scandalous royalty constantly took them off course and led them on a temporary sidetrack. Once they are able to overcome the obstacles or outrun trouble, Huck and Jim were back on the river enjoying life. Like the river, life also has many obstacles that must be overcome before one can continue down the path.