The ability to learn through experiences and the world around oneself is generally a topic shied away from by many in modern society. However, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn presents the story of Huckleberry Finn, a boy Twain writes to embody the American spirit and the total freedom to break away from society and discover oneself in the world. Huck’s many adventures throughout the story cause him to develop morally and spiritually as a character. Huck embarks upon a cleansing, spiritual journey down the Mississippi that changes him from a boy into the archetypal hero, a journey in which Huck experiences the world objectively, refining his moral core and furthering his understanding of others and society as a whole allowing …show more content…
Huck begins as an archetypal “boy”; his good character is apparent, but there are many things about the world that Huck has yet to understand. Huck displays his good character in his attempts to prevent Tom from pranking Jim and stealing candles. Huck says that “…[Tom] wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But he said no...”(Twain 5). Huck displays a moral core superior to Tom’s in this scene in his defense of Jim. Huck seems to at least care for others and their property, even if it is of a somewhat selfish motive. This apparent care for others is a seed that, as Huck journeys along the river, sprouts as Huck develops into a heroic character. Furthermore, Huck fills the archetypal “boy” because he has an incredibly limited understanding of the world, an incomprehensiveness apparent in his misunderstanding of the Bible’s purpose. Huck does try his best to understand what the widow is teaching him about, but as a character Huck does not yet understand enough about the world, as Huck says, “[The widow] learned me about Moses; and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but she let it out the Moses had been dead a long time; so I didn’t care no more…; because I don’t take no stock in dead people” (Twain 2). Huck’s lack of …show more content…
Huck lives with his pap for several months in their cabin, but Huck never alludes to any conflict. However, one night Pap has too much to drink and chases Huck down in a drunken rage. Huck “begged, and told him I was only Huck;… He said he would rest a minute and then kill me” (Twain 29). Huck then grabbed a shotgun, “slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, and then laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing [it] towards Pap”(Twain 29). It is shown that Huck totally loses his trust in his father as he “slipped the ramrod down it to make sure [the shotgun] was loaded, and then [he] laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing [it] towards Pap”(Twain 29). When Huck is attacked by his father, Pap, in the cabin, Huck’s sense of trust in others (especially his father) wanes away. Although it is apparent that Huck enjoyed his life by the river before his father tried to murder him, Huck develops a plan and makes his escape from the cabin as a result of his father trying to send him to the depths of hell. Huck finally severs their father-son relationship as a result of the murder attempt. After evading Pap, Huck makes his way to Jackson Island where he knows he can take shelter. On Jackson Island, Huck meets Jim,
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).
While living on the island he meets Jim who was a slave but Huck soon learns that he has ran off and now in the process of making his way up north to Canada. Here Huck is faced along with his first tough decision, to go with Jim and help him, or just go and tell the officials of a runaway slave and get the reward. Huck reluctantly joins Jim and promises him to get him to free land for the sake of a good adventure but he still feels guilty to be conversing with a runaway slave let alone help him escape. Along the way Huck has many challenges, which are just like this one. This is truly remarkable for a child to be able to break away from the influence of society and go with his heart and do what is right especially when it was considered wrong.
When Huck and Jim first meet each other on the island they are just acquaintances who had little history together but the decision they make to help each other foreshadows their relationship later on in the story. When Jim first finds Huck he states, "Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain' dead—you ain' drownded—you's back agin? It's too good for true, honey, it's too good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o' you. No, you ain' dead! you's back agin, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck—de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!" (Twain ). By this time, Jim has heard the news of Hucks “death”, so when they find each other on the island it comes as a surprise to Jim. “People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum--but that don't make no difference. I ain't a-going to tell, and I ain't a-going back there, anyways” (Twain ), Huck thought. After Jim told Huck that he was a runaway, Huck promised not to tell anyone, which shows his values and foreshadows their relationship later on in the story. After leaving ...
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...
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.
They are similar characters in that they have run away from the chains that civilization binds them with, Jim of course in a more literal sense. The two are able to come together and lead this idealistic life on an island of their own where Jim does not have to serve a master, and Huck does not have to pray or go to school. They had also had little control over their own lives back in St. Petersburg due to Huck being a child subject to the domination of adults, and Jim a slave forced to submit to the will of a white man. The island becomes the perfect safe haven from society for the two, and their meeting there allows them to form a bond over their mutual
Jim. Nigger Jim is a slave of Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas. He overhears that the sisters are planning to sell him, to he tried to escape and believing that he has the chance to be free. While in hiding, Huck sees him and let him join to his journey to the Mississippi river. He is the antagonist to Huck's character. Although they became true friends, through him Huck felt guilt and shame but later realized the value of friendship.
Huck Finn thinks about his father in an unusual way. Huck does not like his father, which makes sense because his father is a greedy drunk, however Huck still looks up to his father as a role model. Pap is not a good role model for Huck because of his history of abusing Huck and his random disappearances. When Pap tries to gain custody of his Huck, the judges side with him just because he is the father. This is shown when Huck says “The judge and the widow went to law to ge...
Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through much criticism and denunciation has become a well-respected novel. Through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy, Huckleberry Finn, Twain illustrates the controversy of racism and slavery during the aftermath of the Civil War. Since Huck is an adolescent, he is vulnerable and greatly influenced by the adults he meets during his coming of age. His expedition down the Mississippi steers him into the lives of a diverse group of inhabitants who have conflicting morals. Though he lacks valid morals, Huck demonstrates the potential of humanity as a pensive, sensitive individual rather than conforming to a repressive society. In these modes, the novel places Jim and Huck on pedestals where their views on morality, learning, and society are compared.
Almost immediately we are introduced to the drunken, deranged man who is Huck?s father, Pap. Pap is an alcoholic who roams from place to place buying up booze and sleeping wherever he can. Huck has never viewed him as a real father figure because Pap has almost never been there for Huck, except when he is ?disciplining? him. Pap is uneducated and disapproves of Huck attending school. Pap tells Huck, "you're educated...You think your're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he can't?" (14) Huck puts up with Pap?s numerous beatings because he does not want to be the cause of any more controversies between himself and Pap. Huck explains, "If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way" (95). Pap?s addiction to alcohol is how Twain views the affect that alcohol can have on a person. He believes that alcohol is a money waster, can affect the sanity of people, and how it can turn even decent men into complete scoundrels.
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...
In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Pap is a horrible parent to Huck, and constantly berates him. When he hears about Huck's new 6000 dollar fortune, he comes back to town to get back his son and the money. He is furious when he finds that he cannot get the money, and he becomes even more enraged when he finds out that Huck is going to school and living a civilized life. He says to Huck
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.
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