What Makes Huck Finn Self Reliant

In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, Huck Finn, an orphaned child, runs away from home down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave, Jim. In the beginning of the novel, Widow Douglas and Miss Watson take in Huck and try to civilize him by teaching him the Bible and going to church. However, Huck does not understand many things about culture and how society functions, so once pap, his drunken father, kidnaps him and tries to kill him he decides to leave everything behind and live on his own. He runs away to an island where he meets up with Jim and finds himself becoming very close with the slave as they begin to travel down the river. Throughout Huck’s life he continuously questions society and how people act.

Emerson rightfully explains that it is impossible for one to be self reliant if one also relies on society to shape him as a person. Emerson writes, “but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” (pg.4). What makes a person unique and self reliant, is the strength to go against what society wants of a him when he disagrees with them. Likewise, Huck illustrates nonconformity multiple times throughout the novel, but the clearest example is when he is deciding whether or not to let Miss Watson know where Jim is. He writes a letter to her explaining everything, however, he then proceeds to tear it up and says, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” (pg.273). Huck is raised in a society where black people are treated as property, but after spending so much time with Jim on the raft, Huck finally understands that just because that is what he has been taught does not mean that is morally correct. Although society tries to push their views down his throat, Huck defies this and chooses Jim, a runaway slave, over Miss Watson, a civilized white woman. According to Emerson, by not conforming to what society has taught Huck has achieved self