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Huck's Dilemmas

Decent Essays

In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck finds himself in a myriad of dilemmas. Whether it is his own life or the life of another that is in peril, Huck makes decisions based on his moral compass. His code of ethics has been shaped by his onerous life and by the society he lives in. However, Huck sometimes strays from society’s version of what is right and what is wrong. In those situations, Huck feels that he has done wrong because he does not realize that society’s perception of ethics is very narrow minded. After Huck tells Mary Jane the truth about her “uncles” he thinks, “Pray for me! I reckoned if she [had known] me she’d take a job that was more nearer her size. … She had the grit to pray for Judas if she took the notion.” Huck …show more content…

Huck knows what is acceptable in society, but he constantly finds his conscience pulling him in the opposite direction. For instance, when Huck contemplates the fact that he is traveling with a runaway slave, he resolves to turn Jim in because of that is what society tells him is the right thing to do. He is paddling out to shore when Jim tells Huck that he was his best friend and the first white man to ever keep a secret for him. This deeply affects Huck and he realizes that he cannot turn Jim in, even when he runs into an assemblage of men searching for slaves that have run away. Twain is especially critical of slavery in Southern society in this novel. When Jim tells Huck he plans to earn enough money or find a way to steal his children away from their owner, Huck pities the slaveholder saying, “Here was this [slave] which I had as good as helped to run away, … saying he would steal his children- children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t even done me no harm.” Huck is not a bad person; he is simply blinded by his time. Twain is pointing out the social irony of a man having to steal his children because a white man owned them. Huck does not see the world in black and white. He does not split the world into good people and bad people; to him, everything is relative. This is why, when Huck and Jim leave a band of murderers on a sinking ship, Huck uses his quick wit to save them. He acts on his scruples thinking, “… how dreadful it

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