In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, the nature of individual and societal morality is a pivotal theme to Huck’s storyline and the lens through which he views Southern culture. Through the storyline, Huck is introduced to multiple renditions of moral codes from pap, the widow, Tom, and Jim. Additionally, Huck is also given an ideal seat to view the motives of the multiple mobs and how they interact as a part of society. In Huck’s narrative, an individual 's morality is directly linked to personal benefit being valued above all else and this shapes how and where Huck applies his moral code. Despite this, Huck is able to cultivate his sense of moral responsibility. Moreover, societal morality is even less developed than personal and …show more content…
This sentiment becomes explicitly apparent in the context of mobs, specifically, Colonel Sherburn gives a tirade to the mob planning to hang him and he states that “‘Why don’t your juries hang murderers? Because they’re afraid the man 's friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark -- and it 's just what they would do. ‘So they always acquit; and then a man goes into the night, with a hundred masked cowards at his back, and lynches the rascal’” (134). According to this speech, Sherburn asserts that the entire mob prioritizes self-preservation over enforcing any form of justice. This is true in both the crowds prosecution of Colonel Sherburn after his broad daylight murder of Boggs and the Colonel’s statements on how the crowd allows for potential criminals and murderers to escape trial. Ironically, the release of dangerous individuals into society is more of a destructive behavior. This passage reveals that crowds will allow the endangerment a single person to ensure the preservation of the majority, or alternate group, in this case, the Jury sacrifices the prosecution by acquitting the alleged killer. Thus, the fashion in which mobs think actually hinders the enforcement of moral …show more content…
The outcome when contrasting personal and societal interpretations of morality is that Huck begins his narrative with a self-centric strategy and neglects the use of his moral compass. Over time however, Huck is able to mature his moral standards while mobs of people never progress morally beyond the threshold that is established in the status quo. While Hucks transformation allows him to make his own sound judgements and this leads him to indict slavery. Furthermore, social morality is shown to be unsophisticated and potentially detrimental. Specifically, this brand of morality seeks self-preservation and in essence, mobs seem to devolve their moral standards and consequently, they allow the institution of slavery to continue. In sum, Huck grows more mature in terms of his moral responsibility and the overarching message that his story provides is that individual moral lessons are comparatively better to sharing the possibly misguided sentiment of the
Huckleberry Finn - Moral Choices There were many heroes in the literature that has been read. Many have been courageous and showed their character through tough times. Through these tough times, they were forced to make important decisions and this is where you get the real idea of who deserves to be called a hero. The most influential though of all these was Huckleberry Finn. Through the innocence of childhood, he is able to break through the societal pressures that are brought on him and do right.
The book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn tell the tale of a young boy who embarks on an adventure, one that leads him to find himself. Throughout the novel Huck develops a sense of morality that was always there to begin with, but not nearly as developed as it is by the end of the novel. Through living on his own, independent of societal and peer pressures, Huck is able to identify his own morals in defining what is 'right ' or 'wrong '.
When one is young they must learn from their parents how to behave. A child's parents impose society's unspoken rules in hope that one day their child will inuitivly decerne wrong from right and make decisions based on their own judgment. These moral and ethical decisions will affect one for their entire life. In Mark Twains, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is faced with the decision of choosing to regard all he has been taught to save a friend, or listen and obey the morals that he has been raised with. In making his decision he is able to look at the situation maturely and grow to understand the moral imbalances society has. Hucks' decisions show his integrity and strength as a person to choose what his heart tells him to do, over his head.
In the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the main character Huck Finn undergoes many moral changes. In the beginning of the book, Huck is wild and carefree, playing jokes and tricks on people and believing them all to be hilarious. When Huck's adventures grow to involve more people and new moral questions never before raised, you can tell that he has started to change. By the time the book is almost over, people can see a drastic change in Huck's opinions, thoughts, and his views of "right and wrong".
Twain uses Huck to show the readers how living under an authoritative figure causes one to conform to the ideals and beliefs created by society. He proves to the readers, that while under the care of adults, Huck is forced to follow rules and is limited in his own freedoms. However, in the setting of nature, Twain explains how Huck has more liberties and is free to live his life as he pleases, including “shameful” activities such as befriending Jim. As the story unravels, Twain emphasizes to the audience that society is the cause of one to conform and that action should be taken to permit more liberties and uniqueness within
The book I am doing my book report on is called “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain. This book revolves around a poor fourteen year old boy named Huck who runs away from his drunk father and finds friendship within a former slave, Jim, trying to escape to the free states. They adventure along the Mississippi River and end up stopping at various places throughout the novel and meet people who are all morally inadequate. “Tom told me what his plan was, and I see in a minute it was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it.” This quotes illustrates the dangers that come to Huck and Jim in this novel, but how Huck chooses to go with the plan anyhow, since it causes a sense of ‘adventure.’ The setting of this novel takes place before the Civil War in different towns along the Mississippi River in Missouri. I will talk about how Huck meets Jim, how he and Jim have to escape from their present issues, how they form a friendship and come across evil in their journey, and how they both end up free with a little help from Tom Sawyer.
People have a general belief that they know right from wrong, but how does one truly know the difference? In the fictional works of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain expertly portrays this idea through his main protagonist Huck. Some people believed that this book was nothing more than a boy 's adventure story, but Sloane discredits this idea by stating “In 1885 the Concord Library Board pulled Huck Finn from its shelves. What could possibly have been so offensive in this humorous book, seemingly directed at children?” (Sloane). Huck begins this novel with the ideals and beliefs that society has forced upon him; a both figurative and literal black and white way of thinking. Before Pap comes along and forces him to run off, he thinks of Jim as one thing; a slave. The longer Huck spends time away from
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 met with challenges, Huck constantly makes the righteous 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.
Consequently, Mark Twain recognized the double standard and addresses it in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.Huck was not raised in accordance or the accepted ways of civilization at the time, in fact, he faces many aspects of society which end up making him choose his own individuality over civilization. In a sense, he raises himself. He relies on his instincts and skills he learns from other people to guide him throughout his life. Twain depicts a theme of how civilization and the ethics of a society can conflict with individuality. Huck is a social outcast because he has been out on his own and reared from a drunken father and no mother. Huck experiences that social conventions inhibit personal growth. As a general rule, society has accepted depravity and immorality from some of its members while rejecting others because of their brand of depravity and immorality.
Huck’s morality results from freedom from society and thus represents more natural and logical values. Twain’s message is that society and civilization is flawed, but he mentions this in an indirect way through satire and humor. One of the biggest problems that Twain mentions is the hypocrisy of Southern society. This is important because some of the ideas that he mentions are still relevant in society today. Even through generations of time, certain human psychology and behaviors will remain relevant through the
Society establishes their own rules of morality, but would they be accepted in these days?
Morality has always been defined as having either a good or evil conscious. There is always a choice that a character makes that defines their moral integrity in a literary work and distinguishes them as the hero. In Mark Twain’s story, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, not only does Huck encounters a number of moral circumstances where he or other characters displays situations in which moral ethics is called to questioned, but it proves that despite the religious influence and social expectation, it is through Huck that in order to do what is morally right, one must challenge the moral teaching of the world. Through observation of his world, Huck makes morally ambiguous choices that though may be against his moral teachings. Choice proves that to act on one’s own judgement despite societies expectations demonstrates that hypocrisy of the community as Twain clearly depicts and satirizes Southern society, he depicts the violence and racism that was described as “silvilization”(Kelly). As the community in Twain’s novel follows the general religious teachings and distinguishes the binaries associated with good and evil, Huck is forced to forsake these teachings and goes on a journey to discover his own moral understanding.
At the beginning of the tale, Huck struggles between becoming ?sivilized? and doing what he pleases. He doesn?t want to listen to the rules that the Widow Douglas and her sister force upon him, even though he knows the widow only wants what is best for him. Miss Watson pushes Huck away from society even more through the way she treats him. She teaches him religion in such a dreary way that when she speaks of heaven and hell, Huck would rather go to hell than be in heaven with her: ?And she told all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there?I couldn?t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn?t try for it? (12-13). Huck is taught a very different kind of morality by his father who believes ?it warn?t no harm to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back?? (70). He likes his father?s idea of morality better because he is not yet mature enough to fully understand right and wrong, although living with the widow...
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...
Mark Twain was known as a humorist and in fact, humor was a tool he used to strengthen his points about what he saw as the major problems of the day. Living at the time of the Civil War, he clearly saw and chose to address such problems as slavery, child abuse, religion and feuds. In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain expresses his loathing for some of these serious social problems and yet in general, he never loses his humorous touch. Nonetheless, when he deals with the ills of society that particularly anger him, he chooses not to use humor; rather this is reserved for other areas of his work.