Authors, such as Mark Twain, challenge characters throughout their novels to illustrate themes. Society displays different aspects on how a character should be or should act. Twain shows this within his story to show readers the difficulties a character goes through. In, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses loneliness, confusion, and maturity through the character of Huck, in his struggle to figure out what is right or wrong to illustrate the theme, man’s own decisions v.s. society’s rules. Huck Finn is an example of a victim controlled by society’s demands, but learns to think for himself.
The development of Huck’s character is shown through his loneliness because it leads him to think for himself where no one can pressure him to believe an idea. Huck has no immediate family besides his father Pap, who does not care for him until he finds out his son has acquired a large amount of money. He has no friends either, besides Tom. “...I set down in a chair...and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no use. I
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Ever since his staged murder, every decision he makes is a pull away from what he has known his whole life. Huck fled from society to be free from the pressure of his culture but is faced with confusion when Jim the slave appears. “...I begun to get it through my head he was most free-and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I tried to make out to myself that I warn’t to blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his rightful owner…”. Here in chapter sixteen, Huck is being pulled in conflicting, emotional directions because the help he is lending Jim. He knows Miss Watson would ridicule him for helping a slave escape to freedom. This is one of the biggest decisions Huck faces that contradicts everything society has showed him. Turning Jim in would be the right thing to do because that's what everyone in his position would do. He does not, because it feels like the wrong thing to
Why would anyone in his or her right mind even think about freeing a slave? Everyone in the society was telling Huck that slaves were no more than ones property, but Huck began to question this belief when he got to know the property for who it really was. During the story there are many times when Huck feels an obligation to turn Jim in to the authorities and just get on with his life, but his conscience kept telling him that this man is a real person. Near the end of the story, Jim was stuck in a holding cell, since he had run away. After much consideration of the situation, Huck decides that he wants to free Jim because he believes that he shouldn't be treated that way. Even though the entire town believes that Jim should be contained and treated like property, Huck still sticks to his morals and goes along with the plan that could get him in trouble or even killed. At the end of the story we find out that Jim had always been free, and we now find Huck's actions to be heroic and noble.
	Huck with his anti-society attitude, you would presume that he would have no problem in helping Jim. Yet he fights within himself about turning over Jim to the authorities, by this action within Huck shows that he must have feelings that slavery is correct so that the racial bigotry of the time may be seen. This decision for Huck is monumental even though he makes it on the spot. He has in a way decided to turn his back on everything that "home" stands for, this allows us to leave our thought of bigotry behind and begin to see Jim for what he really is a man.
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
In chapter 16, Huck goes through a moral conflict of whether he should turn Jim in or not. “I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me (89).'; Right off from the beginning, Huck wanted to turn Jim in because it was against society’s rules to help a slave escape and Huck knew it. But when Jim said that “Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole Jim’s got now (89),'; made helped Huck to grasp the concept that there is a friendship in the making. Even though Huck didn’t turn Jim in, he is till troubled by his conscience when the slave catchers were leaving because he knows it is wrong to help a slave. Still Huck cannot bring himself forward to tell on Jim, thus showing that his innate sense of right exceeds that of society.
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.
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
Conformity and the causation thereof is a common theme Mark Twain uses in his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Throughout the story the main character, Huck, enters different settings in which he is either taught how to think or left to his own devices to come to his own conclusions. He struggles to identify with the morals presented to him by society and as a result, cannot determine whether he should follow his own moralities. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain utilizes the characterization of Huck in and out of nature to demonstrate the psychological effects of nature versus nurture
As it turns out life is not as easy as everyone makes it out to be, and for the most part human beings are particularly pessimistic people living in a constant state of fear. In the novels, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, and “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin, the main characters,Huckleberry Finn and Edna Pontellier, of either novel are absorbed in their own respective fears, which coincidentally are manifested into feelings of isolation, confusion, and rebellion to the point that they go through a series of dramatically, life-altering psychological change. They have experienced unfortunate tragedies at crucial moments in their lives rendering in them an insatiable devotion to searching for identity, or meaning in life. They
Ransomed? Whats that???.. it means that we keep them till they're dead (10). This dialogue reflects Twains witty personality. Mark Twain, a great American novelist, exploits his humor, realism, and satire in his unique writing style in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain, born in 1835, wrote numerous books throughout his lifetime. Many of his books include humor; they also contain deep cynicism and satire on society. Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, exemplifies his aspects of writing humor, realism, and satire throughout the characters and situations in his great American novel.
Toward the beginning of the novel, Huck has no problem robbing caravans, kidnapping wealthy people for money, and even killing the families of the gang formed by him and his friends if they became turncoats and told of this gang. He was even disappointed when all the gang did was cause trouble at a Sunday school meeting. Later on in the novel, Huck is also faced with a moral dilemma when he comes across Jim, Miss Watson’s runaway slave. As they travel down the river, huck mentions, “I begun to get it through my head that he was most free—and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn’t get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn’t rest” (Twain 153). Back in that time, it most certainly would not be a moral dilemma; instead, it would be very simple: bring the slave back to his owner. However, when Jim asked Huck to promise that he wouldn’t tell, Huck replied with, “Well, I did. I said I wouldn’t, and I’ll stick to it. Honest injun I will. People would call me a low down Ablitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t agoing to tell” (Twain 103). In the chosen passage, it is very clear that Huck realizes what is happening there, and believes it to be wrong. Huck thinks to himself, “this is another one that I’m letting him rob her of her money. And when she got through, they all just laid
Mark Twain achieves his purpose of describing the natural world in the passage, “Miss Watson she kept … Tom Sawyer waiting for me” (2-3), in the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The purpose of this passage was to show how the night reflects the loneliness in Huckleberry’s life by using imagery, diction, and tone.
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 book Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, has many themes that appear throughout the text. One such theme is that people must live outside of society to be truly free. If one lives outside of society, then they do not have to follow all of its laws and try to please everyone. They would not be held back by the fact that if they do something wrong, they would be punished for doing it.
“The situation of the orphan is truly the worst, you’re a child, powerless, with no protectors or guides. It’s the most vulnerable position you can be in, to see someone overcome those odds tells us something about the human spirit. They are often depicted as the kindest or most clever of characters.” Michelle Boisseau describes how important these types of characters are. In a Sunday Times article, she states that a lot of the stories and novels are considered to be apologues about orphans becoming the hero of the book. Huck’s story is quite like this subject. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel written by Mark Twain, it’s about a boy named Huckleberry Finn, who sets out on a journey to discover his own truth about living free in nature, rather than becoming civilized in a racist and ignorant society. Mark Twain implies that Huck Finn resembles more of what he believes is right rather than what society surmises from him. Twain reveals this through the themes of satire, racism, and hero’s journey, which he uses constantly through out the book.
The friendship between Huck and Jim is constantly changing with the chain of events. The two characters encountered many things while floating along with the pace of the Mississippi, such as making decisions. In the novel Huck was forced to make the decision whether or not he would turn Jim in because it would be the, "right thing" to do because Jim was a run-away slave. It was a close place. I took...up [the letter I'd written to Miss Watson], and held it in my hand.