Morality In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain

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“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, The situation forces Huck and Jim to depend on each other and to live as brothers to survive as they each seek their own freedom. Jim is a runaway slave seeking to live as a free man with his family. Huck is a white teenager seeking freedom from the education, religion, cleanliness and structure expectations of society. The book features the thoughts, actions and struggles of Jim and Huck as the issues of race, morality and freedom forces them to resolve the issues for themselves. Race is the most prevalent theme in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Huck’s dependence on Jim is …show more content…

Throughout their journey, Huck battles between right and wrong. Even though Huck is trying to get freedom from society and its rules, still the rules bound him. He is deeply conflicted by societal views of blacks and his own feelings towards Jim. He has grown to see Jim as a human being and not as a possession. Huck also behaves from a correct moral sense in his relationships. (Adventures) Huck takes issue in the Duke and the Kings deceit but only when he develops a relationship with the person who is affected. For example, when they steal Mary Jane’s inheritance, Huck gives her what is rightfully hers because he feels bad, but he does not seem to be bothered when the Duke and King perform “The Royal Nonesuch” for a town of people that he has no connection with.. Twain tries to show that the correct thing is not always the traditional thing through Huck befriending Jim. Due to Huck’s upbringing, he cannot help but feel wicked living with Jim but he finds peace with it. Twain’s possible contempt for blacks is not fully revealed until Tom Sawyer clears up something that confused Huck. When Huck first proposed freeing Jim, he was surprised that Tom agreed so readily. The reason Tom did that was he knew all the while that Miss Watson had freed Jim when she died two months before.(Lester) Widow Douglas is Huck’s standard for morality because she “sivilized” him. For example, in chapters 12 and 13 when Huck overhears the …show more content…

In the story, both Huck and Jim are outcasts. Jim is living as a slave and Huck is being “Sivilized”. Both Jim and Huck are trying to escape the rules of society, trying to get away from the rules and restrictions they do not embrace. After Huck has spent most of his life living free and without rules he just does not fit in the world, that Widow Douglas is trying to put him into. This leaves him an outcast. When Huck is living with Widow Douglas he feels oppressed because she forces him to dress up and go to school, she forces him to give up his habits like smoking. Cannot live the way he wants to live anymore. He even enjoys his life after his kidnapping by his father until he begins locking him away for days at a time. When Huck runs away he is running from the control of his father and the control of society or Widow Douglas. Huck represents the American frontiersman, a man who chooses the unknown rather than living under the tyranny of society (The). When Huck steps on the raft he searches for the freedom to live by his own standards, He is not looking for anything tangible. (The) Jim’s quest for freedom is much more complex. His freedom means he escapes that shackles of slavery, that he is his own man, that he is no longer property, that he is a true human being with rights. (Adventures) Jim has no control of his own destiny and he is trying to obtain that with his freedom. (The)

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