The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Attempting to make decisions is difficult when one experiences doubt in one’s mind or when one’s upbringing goes against it. In “Huck Finn'; by Mark Twain , the main character Huck has to first confront doubts and then form plans to surmount an impossibly tragic end. These efforts demonstrate that one’s upbringing and morals are sometimes insufficient to cope with the immense problems that arise along a journey, and that the decisions one must make must come from the heart. During this story Huck solves many problems by listening to his heart. Although he believes that he is doing wrong and that people and god will look down upon him, he is actually doing what is morally correct.
At the beginning of the story Huck runs away from his friends and family to Jacksons Island. On Jacksons Island he is confronted by Jim who is a runaway slave. Jim being an African American is looked down on by society. When Huck is faced with the decision of choosing to rat on Jim or keep his secret Huck has a hard time. He knows subconsciously that Jim has done something wrong. Yet he follows his heart and decides to keep Jims secret. He says'; people would call me a low-down abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum';. Huck here shows that he isn’t only running away form home but He’s running away from everything that home stands for. This happens many times in the story. Huck starts to see Jim as a friend rather then a black man. When Huck plays the prank on Jim after the raft gets separated Huck apologized to Jim. He knew society would have never apologized to a black person. But now Huck listens to his heart not what society has taught him.
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';.
Society has always denounced the acts of death and children running away from their homes. Huck can be seen as a morbid child as he is always talking about death and murder. Society would rather not have anything to do with people who have such a melancholic outlook on life. Living with years of torment by his drunkard father, Pap, Huck feared the day he would return to daunt his life. When Pap does return, he seizes Huck and drags him to a secluded cabin where Huck is boarded inside and unable to leave: This is where the dilemma occurs. In this position, Huck has a decision to make, either take note to the morals of society and listen to his conscience, which will result in more added years of pain and anguish from Pap, or Huck can listen to his heart and do what he thinks is best.
He gets into all sorts of conflicts that force him to battle and work his way out of them, and in turn, they propel his moral position’s evolvement. It is especially hard on Huck when it comes time to resolving moral dilemmas. He is always stuck between making his own moral decisions, be it conventional or not, or allowing influencers, his father, the widow, and society, to make the decisions for him. He can never let go of the guilt associated with taking the unconventional path and rejecting what society upholds because that is all he has ever been taught in his life. That is why it is hard to apologize to Jim at first, but given time Huck is able to muster the courage to do so because that is the right thing to do even when society says so otherwise. The same goes for helping a slave, such as Jim, escape to a free state where he can find the opportunity to reunite with his family. Ultimately, he violates the demands of society to do what is right and not contribute to the enslavement of another human being. And it is not until the end of the novel that Huck no longer views his decisions as moral failings, but instead as moral triumph because he stayed true to himself and not once did he allow society to dictate his
	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.
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'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.
When the middle of the novel comes around Huck begins to distinguish what is right and wrong in life and begins to mature and do the right thing. He shows this when he chooses not to partake in the scam that the King and the Duke are playing on the Wilks family. Instead he takes the money back from the King and Duke to hide it because he believes it is only fair to the family. "I'm letting him rob her of her money...I feel so ornery and low...I got to steal that money somehow; and I got to steal it some way that they wont suspicion I done it" (Twain 133) This shows that Huck is starting to see the line between games and real life.
He started to feel guilty for keeping Jim hidden all that time and even attempted to write Mrs. Watson. He wrote a letter to her telling of Jim’s location but ripped it up immediately after. Huck came to a conclusion when he says, “I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all” (Twain 204). He knew that what he was doing was not considered right in that situation but he felt okay with the choices that he had made. At this point, the reader can see how Huck is conflicted and acknowledges that his lies could have been immoral. In the end of his meltdown, he decided that it was all for the best and he wanted to continue to protect Jim at all
"What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right." Whether he knows it or not, the character Huck Finn is a perfect example of the truth in this quote. His struggle between knowing in his mind and what is legal, but feeling in his heart what is moral was predominant throughout the novel. Today, we'll examine three examples of situations when Huck had to decide for himself whether to follow the law, or his heart.
Yes, life does technically end at death, but that 's the beauty of it. All great things must come to an end. The narrator began to see how death in inevitable. He saw the chill of death in his son which led him to realize that is the same chill his father saw in himself when he was younger. In the last couple of sentences he says, " saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death." (White). This to me signifies that there is a consideration of death being a form of ending. To every end, there is a beginning and that "chill of death", that White describes may be the warmest breeze we humans will ever
In the beginning of the novel, Huck plays many practical jokes on Jim. Huck and Tom begin the novel by waking up Jim when he is sleeping under a tree. They are both very immature boys and think it will be fun to scare Jim. They act like Jim isn’t a human being and don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that he has feelings too. When Huck and Jim get separated by the fog Huck must think Jim is stupid and won’t catch onto his lie. “Aamy heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’ k’yer no’ mo’ what become er me en de raf’.En when I wake up en fine you back agin,all safe en soun’,de tears come,en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo foot.”(109) Huck makes Jim believe the whole fog storm was just a dream and gets him very worried. Huck doesn’t realize that Jim is trying to protect him and be a father figure to him, and that he only wants the best for Huck. Huck also thinks Jim isn’t knowledgeable because he is a black slave. Huck and Jim are arguing and Huck feels Jim cannot say anything intelligent so Huck changes the subject. “I never seen such a nigger .If he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again. He was the most down on S...
William Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, the concept of justice a theme that many characters struggle with. Unforgiving justice results to serious punishments, in result of an individual’s immoral acts committed during the play. Furthermore, loyal is very hard to find among individuals in the play. It is shown to King Lear in both positive and negative perspectives. Loyalty plays off at the end of the play, when King Lear discovers who has been loyal to him all along. The greed of power is vividly shown in the Fool’s and King Leers point of view. After retiring his kingdom Lear discovers the loss of his power, and authority. Overall, justice, loyalty, and power are some struggling themes that progress the play,
would with a drug addict parent that neglects their child. This double standard brings up more questions about the legality and consequences of faith healing.
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
Even though people do not accept faith healing for children, after falling sick, some children in the United State are only offered prayers by their parents and some states allow it. It is heartless. There are some stories about faith healing for kids. According to article “Faith Healing: Religious Freedom vs. Child Protection”, the author wrote that: “Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD) was founded in 1983 by Rita and Douglas Swan. They were Christian Scientists who firmly believed that disease was an illusion, and that the most dangerous thing they could do was to show lack of faith in God by relying on medical treatment.” Matthew was their child. When Matthew developed a fever, they paid a Christian Science practitioner to come