Is Huck Finn An Epic Hero

In the middle of the book, Huck starts to distinguish what is the right thing to do. He starts to think if all the things he was doing before with Jim and Tom were too mean and stupid to do. One specific example is when he decides to steal the money that the king and duke have, “I got to steal that money somehow; and I got to steal it some way that they wont suspicion I done it." (Twain 133) After Huck stole the money Huck and Jim didn’t feel bad at all, and knew that they did the right thing after all. He learns that not everyone can be scammed on, that the real life is important and that you can’t do anything stupid like that. He sees eye to eye with Jim and realizes that he cant have someone taken advantage of just because of their

Mark Twain attempts to convey the corruption within society through the adventures that Jim and Huck are confronted with. Twain embodies a set view of conduct that differs from the rest of society within Huck’s character, although he does not fully accept his beliefs to be just. This sets Huck up for difficulties to conform to the standards of society, being that his initial instincts are frowned upon. Twain takes advantage of Huck’s situation and subtly incorporates his own views on society in his present day. It is difficult to alter one’s opinion, let alone the opinion of a whole society, so Twain aims to work in his own beliefs without losing attention of his reader. The moral of the story is obscured in order to communicate these beliefs

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a satire written by Mark Twain. The novel is based on the series of adventures that the protagonist, Huckleberry Finn, and his companion a runaway slave named Jim go on. In the novel, the protagonist, Huck Finn's mind is pulled in conflicting directions by two compelling desires.

Through the theme of rebellion against society, Huck demonstrates the importance of thinking for oneself and embodies the idea that adults are not always right. This is highlighted in his noncompliance when it comes to learning the Bible and in the decisions he makes when it comes to Jim, decisions that prove to be both illegal and dangerous. By refusing to conform to standards he does not agree with, Huck relies on his own experiences and inner conscience when it comes to making decisions. As a result, Huck is a powerful vehicle for Mark Twain’s commentary on southern society and

In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain follows protagonist, Huck Finn throughout his endeavors. This coming of age story displays Huck’s actions that lead to him running away from home. From a young age, Huck is forced to become emotionally and physically autonomous due to his father’s alcoholism. Huck runs away and begins his adventure with fugitive slave, Jim. Together they meet a diverse range of individuals and families. Mark Twain illustrates Huck Finn’s character development by exposing him to different moral systems.

Throughout the novel, Twain shows his contempt for corrupt human nature. Although these instances are often satirized and exaggerated, the message is still the same. For instance, when the King and the Duke first start to lie about being the dead Peter Wilks’ brothers to obtain his money, Huck says, “It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race,” (191). In this instance Twain is utilizing Huck to show his aversion to the way people lie and cheat, and how a couple of people can make a bad name for all of us. Another example is when Jim sells the King and Duke out to the townspeople and they are carried on a pole, tarred and feathered. Although Huck, has tried to escape the King and Dukes several occasions and has witnessed the cruelties put on others and lies they tell, he does not think that they deserve similar treatment. In fact, he says, “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another,” (269). Through Huck, Twain is voicing his opposition to how people treat one another, whether they deserve it or not. Thus Twain is using his novel to voice his enmity for the cruelty in human nature.

They wants to jump in, but I says: 'Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got time to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then you take to the water and wade down to me and get in-that 'll throw the dogs off the scent.'" (Twain 116) Huck acts like a Good Samaritan. Not only does Huck have pity upon these two men, he is also willing to take action and help them to safety. ""When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river-bank a piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and tugged at them till I Got then ashore; then I covered up their faces, and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me." (Twain 112) Huck has empathy for humankind; he treats others as he wants to be treated. Huck overlooked a person's social status, race or respectability when reacting to a situation. Another example of Huck's tenderness towards other humans is his experience with Jim on the river. At the beginning of the voyage Huck viewed Jim as a piece of property, a true reflection of Southern mores. "It was fifteen minutes before I would work myself to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't even sorry for it afterward, neither." (Twain 84) Going against social mores takes a great deal of looking inside one's self. Being raised in a time and place where blacks were looked down upon, Huck found that going against what

The main character of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn, undergoes a complete moral change while having to make life changing and moral questioning decisions throughout his journey on the river. Huck appears first as a morally inferior character caused by living with a self absorbed and abusive father, because of his alcoholic habits. Throughout the whole book Huck is guided by Jim, a runaway slave who goes with him and helps Huck gain his sense of morality. During these encounters, he is in many situations where he must look within and use his judgement to make decisions that will affect Huck’s morals.

Mark Twain once described his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as “a struggle between a sound mind and a deformed conscience”. Throughout the novel, Huck wrestles with the disparity between his own developing morality and the twisted conscience of his society. In doing so, he becomes further distanced from society, both physically and mentally, eventually abandoning it in order to journey to the western frontier. By presenting the disgust of Huck, an outsider, at the state of society, Mark Twain is effectively able to critique the intolerance and hypocrisy of the Southern South. In doing so, Twain asserts that in order to exist as a truly moral being, one must escape from the chains of a diseased society.

Huck began to over exaggerate as he was expressing his feelings of wickedness for “stealing a poor old woman’s nigger”, which is an over exaggeration since he did not steal Jim, but instead was helping him escape a terrible lifestyle (Twain 318). Also ironically, if he went to Sunday-school he would have learned that helping a slave would lead him to “everlasting fire”, instead of to Paradise, although holding slaves is against Christian ideologies (318). By doing this Twain subtly emphasizes the foolishness and irony that religious women such as Miss Watson would even own a slave while parading herself as a devout Christian woman because of the fact that Christians do not believe in harming other beings, which slavery does by oppression. As Huck pondered on his ethical dilemma whether to save

Morality is most often defined as “the principles concerning a distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.” A choice will always be made that defines a character and their moral integrity. In Mark Twain’s novel, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, Huck runs into many situations where he or another character are put into a position in which morality is called into question. This proves that regardless of societies influences and expectations, for Huck to do what is right he must test the morals he has learned from his world and society. Through his reflections, Huck makes some poor choices that are against what he has been taught, giving him

Twain uses Huck to make decisions based on this hypocritical slave-owning, Christian lifestyle. Huck must choose to either aid a runaway slave named Jim or return him to Miss Watson, while the white society of the South would expect Huck to return Jim to Miss Watson. Huck and Jim 's friendship makes this a significant decision because Huck is morally conflicted. Jim is his friend, but he is also the property of Miss Watson. An excerpt from Magill 's Survey of American Literature puts the situation in a right perspective exclaiming “Jim is property before he is man, and Huck is deeply troubled, surprisingly, by the thought that he is going to help Jim, not only because he sees it, in part, as a robbery, but more interestingly, because he sees his cooperation as a betrayal of his obligation to the

Often times Huck found himself in a moral dilemma on whether to do what society instilled in him or to do what he thinks should be done. Huck betrayed those feelings of “what society would want” him to do in order to be a good friend to Jim, putting his own self up at risk again for Jim. Jim was being held captive by Huck’s current host and Huck, abandoning his duties of his superior race and being a good Christian, as the Widow called it Huck suddenly has an epiphany “All right then, I'll go to hell!” as he goes to “steal Jim out of slavery” (212). Seeing the situation through Huck’s perspective it gives the reader every little detail that goes into his thought process in his decision making. These types of actions were considered wrong by society at that time and place but Huck sets that all aside and does what he feels is the right thing. Most of the time Huck has to think on his feet making the decision making process even more difficult, like the time when Huck was going to give Jim up as a runaway slave. “Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on, s’pose you’d ‘a’ done right and give Jim up, would you feel better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad---I’d feel just the same way I do now” (91). Even through Huck’s dialect you can see him argue with himself on what the right thing to is, but he throws out what society would do and does what his heart tells him. Through Huck arguing

In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain presents the problem of slavery in America in the 19th Century. Twain poses this problem in the form of a character named Huckleberry Finn, a white boy raised in the antebellum South. Huck starts to question his view regarding slavery when he acquaints himself more intimately with a runaway slave while he himself tries to run away. Huck’s development as a character is affected by society’s influence on his experiences while growing up in the South, running away with Jim, and trying to save Jim. Although Huck decides to free Jim, Huck’s deformed conscience convinces him that he is doing the wrong thing.

Despite an ardent view on slavery evident through interactions with Jim, Huck’s slowly shifting view of Jim from that of ignorance to seeming acceptance expresses his ability to stray from flawed societal values to his own developed moral code of conduct. This becomes evident when Huck protects Jim from men who board his raft, by hinting he has smallpox. Although one can see this as compassion for Jim, Huck questions with racist undertones, “s’pose you done right and give Jim up; would you felt better than you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad” (Twain 127). However, he later affirms himself to “do whatever come handiest at the time.” (Twain 127). At this point, society still influences Huck, but his statement marks his decision to detach from societal values, and eventually allows him to form his own views on Jim. This comes slowly, as Huck cannot shake free from racism.