Huck Finn’s Experiences In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain presents the problem of slavery in America in the 19th Century. Twain poses this problem in the form of a character named Huckleberry Finn, a white boy raised in the antebellum South. Huck starts to question his view regarding slavery when he acquaints himself more intimately with a runaway slave while he himself tries to run away. Huck’s development as a character is affected by society’s influence on his experiences while growing up in the South, running away with Jim, and trying to save Jim. Although Huck decides to free Jim, Huck’s deformed conscience convinces him that he is doing the wrong thing. Huck’s experiences in the society impact his conscience by raising him to believe that human beings can be property. This quote by Pap Finn is taken from a conversation that he is having about a black professor from the North, “…prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and-” (Twain, pg 27). In this quote, Pap Finn expresses his feelings towards black people, and he is not the only person to think this way. Pap feels as if the most accomplished black man is always beneath the basest white man. When Huck returns to Aunt Sally, they have this conversation: Aunt Sally: “Good Gracious! anybody hurt?” Huck: “No’m. Killed a nigger” Aunt Sally: “Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt…” (Twain, pg 221) Southern society seems to share this idea of how white people belittle blacks. Aunt Sally shows how it does not really matter about a ‘nigger’ being shot and how she does not consider that a person getting hurt. Society’s influence on Huck is clearly evident when he says, “They took my nigger, w... ... middle of paper ... ...as he must be white inside. This shows how in his mind, white is good and black is bad, but since Jim is black and he is doing something good, then he must be white. Huck’s experiences and surroundings change him day by day. Even though Jim is black and he hasn’t changed, Huck has changed and now recognizes Jim as a human being and not as property. Through out the entire novel, Huck has grown as a character because of the experiences that he has gone through. Along with society's impact, running away with Jim and trying to save Jim have also changed and impacted Huck's character. Huck's views on slavery have changed due to his experiences with Jim. Although the end of the novel does lead Huck to how he was at the beginning, the reader can still see how much Huck has changed and grown. Huck does not view Jim as property anymore, but as a human being with feelings.
	Huck’s attitude for Jim is racist which is seen when he decides to play a trick on Jim during their voyage. After Huck plays his trick his attitude toward Jim begins to change, "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 ever sorry for it afterward, neither" (Twain 72). The dialogue throughout the book between Huck and Jim illustrates that Jim is more than property and that he is a human being with feelings, and hopes for a better future.
Jim's character traits are easy to over look because of his seeming ignorance, but in reality Jim possessed some qualities that created a positive influence on Huck. He began by demonstrating to Huck how friends teach friends. His honest compassion also eventually causes Huck to resist the ideas society has placed upon him, and see Jim as an equal-- rather than property that can be owned. Huck knew he was going against society, and of the consequences that he could receive for freeing a slave. "It would get all around, that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was to ever see anybody from that town again, I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame", (269-270). Huck then claims, "All right, then, I'll go to hell…"(272) This shows that Huck was willing to put himself on the line for a slave, because he ceased to view Jim as property and recognized him as a friend. At the beginning of the story Huck would have never done this, but after the many adventures that occur, Jims unconditional love for Huck pierces the shell society placed ar...
Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels ever written. The story is about Huck, a young boy who is coming of age and is escaping from his drunken father. Along the way he stumbles across Miss Watson's slave, Jim, who has run away because he overhead that he would be sold. Throughout the story, Huck is faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not to turn Jim in. Mark Twain has purposely placed these two polar opposites together in order to make a satire of the society's institution of slavery. Along the journey, Twain implies his values through Huck on slavery, the two-facedness of society, and represents ideas with the Mississippi River.
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.
Huckleberry Finn – The Changes of His Character Throughout the Novel. & nbsp; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is a novel about a young man's search for identity. Huckleberry Finn goes through some changes and learns some life lessons throughout his journey. Huck changes from being just an immature boy at the beginning of the novel to being a more mature man who looks at things from a different perspective now. & nbsp; At the beginning of the novel, Huck tends to have an immature side to him. There are some things in the beginning that show that Huck still has a very childish side to him. They get down on one thing when they don't know anything about it."
In lieu of his escape, Jim emphasized his feelings of becoming a free man. Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom (p. 238). Huck came to the realization that Jim was escaping for a far different reason than he, and began to see this “nigger’s” freedom as his own fault; he was an accomplice. Huck’s conscience became plagued by the fact that Jim was escaping the custody of his rightful owner, and he was doing nothing to stop this. In Huck’s eyes, Jim was essentially the property of poor old Ms. Watson, who didn’t do anything less than teach Jim his manners and his books. Altogether, Huck felt that he was doing wrong by concealing this, and felt miserable to say the least.
Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explores the morality of Huckleberry Finn, a daring, young teen growing up in Missouri, who rafts down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave. While Huck travels, he is met with many adventures and problems that test his morality such as deciding whether or not to turn Jim, a runaway slave, into Miss Watson, Jim’s owner. When faced with challenges, Huck constantly makes the right choice. Yet, because Huck lacks a civil upbringing, he never recognizes his morality and believes himself to be a degenerate even though he demonstrates sound virtue.
This book is set in the year 1852 in the south. It is a coming of age novel about an adolescent boy named Huckleberry Finn. In this early stage of his life, Huckleberry is taught many of life’s lessons that will help him deal with events that may occur later on in his life. Huck fakes his death in order to run away from his alcoholic father and his caretaker, Mrs. Watson, and also to escape from being “sivilized”. While floating down the Mississippi River, he meets Jim, the runaway slave who is owned by Mrs. Watson. His life begins to change when he is faced with many moral struggles along the way. He has to fight against society’s views, which conflict with his views. One of the most significant moral struggles that confronts him is the issue of slavery. Throughout the novel, Huck Finn becomes more self-reliant and mature. He begins to understand the evil in slavery and he realizes that he must follow his own conscience in his actions towards Jim.
... come around from his racist ways. Huck only cares about going around and having adventures, not freeing Jim from slavery. When he finally tries to free Jim from slavery, he only does so because Jim is captive and he has no one to spend time with. If Huck really cared about Jim as much as he did adventuring, he would have traveled north into Illinois where Jim would have been safe.
Pap Finn instills a "Southern race prejudice" and leads Huck to believe "that he detests Abolitionists" (374). Huck comes into conflict with this philosophy as he journeys on the raft with Jim. He can not decide if he is wrong in helping Jim escape slavery, or if the philosophy is wrong. The education of Huck also stirs some values from Pap. When Pap tells him that education is useless, Huck is confused because the Widow Douglas told him that education was important.
...te peoples property. He is told that slaves are simply lesser people than people of the white race. Because it really is what everyone believes, this prejudice is tricky to erase and stays with Huck for a long period time. Soon, Huck starts to realize that this is not true. Jim shows him that although he is a servant, he is a genuine person, not a piece of property. He has emotions, just like Huck himself. Huck continually learns through everyone incident how Jim can be a genuine, caring and beneficial person. Slowly, Huck begins to rethink a few of the prejudice things that he’s been taught most of his childhood life. He becomes his own person by choosing what he knows is right to do, instead of what exactly society says is the right thing to do. This is an example that shows how Huck’s maturity and his capability to think for himself has grown throughout this book.
Mark Twain’s novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn presents a conflict for Huck between compassion and conscience. Huckleberry Finn has been taught by society to accept racism as morally just, but he is confused by his feelings of sympathy for his companion, Jim, a slave who accompanies him on their shared journey to freedom. As Huck departs further and further from society’s mistaken morals, he becomes more and more sympathetic towards Jim, capturing Huck’s self-taught moral compass. This paper focuses on several key turning points in their relationship which contribute to Huck’s rejection of society’s false beliefs: when Huck initially promises not to tell anyone Jim has run away from his enslavement, when Huck decides to keep that promise despite the nagging of his conscience, and finally when Huck decides to risk eternal damnation to actively help Jim find his freedom. With each turning point, I include interpretations of huck’s developing conscience from the perspective of key literary critics.
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...
In this text it shows that Huck knows about the family he won’t ever be able to see again. This also displays the fact that Jim loves his family as much as a white person would. Huck cares about Jim and the fact that he might not ever get to see his family again which shows he’s not racist towards Jim. In Huck Finn the character developes into being lazy and not caring for an education and being civilized once he spends time in the log cabin with Pap. In Huck Finn it says that he likes to be laying around jolly and confortable and talks about the life that he has now compared to what that life has deveoped to be with Pap. “It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didnt see how I’d ever got to like it so well at the widow’s, where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and
In the beginning, Huckleberry Finn hasn?t fully formed opinions on topics such as slavery. He is quite immature and content to just have ?adventures? with his friends. During his journey on the raft, he learns much more about himself through his dealings with others. He establishes his very own standards of right and wrong. Huck?s most important lessons are learned through Jim. He learns to see Jim as a person rather than as a slave: ?I knowed he was white inside? (263). More than any other character in the book, Jim is a catalyst for Huck?s maturity. Through Jim as well as other people he meets along the way, Huck becomes a more defined person who?s more fully himself. His development through the course of the novel proves The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to be a gradual journey toward growth and maturity.