Liar Liar Pants On Fire Analysis

Or does it?” (Ericsson, 495). “But if I justify lying, what makes me any different from slick politicians or the corporate robbers who raided the S&L industry?” (Ericsson, 496). “What far-reaching consequences will, or others, pay as a result of my lie?

He has a father who is abusive as well as an alcoholic, which is why two older ladies by the names of Miss. Watson and Widow Douglas watch over and care for him. The concept of a journey to freedom is portrayed through Huck due to him leaving home as a young boy and seeking for independence. In chapter eleven, Huck dresses up as a girl to go steal food and other items from a home for Jim and himself. “My mother’s down sick, and out of money and everything…” (62). Huck lied to a woman just to steal things from her home to survive because he was running away to become free. "It didn't take me long, though, to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings nor dukes at all..." (40). This is ironic because Huck is noticing that the King and the Duke are con men and liars, but Huck himself is just like them because he lies to people all the time to better himself and get to freedom. Huck has to go through many disadvantages as well as Jim, on their journey to

Huck’s conscience does not bother him when he lies because he believes it never hurts them and no one, at least in his memory, were hurt from his lies. However, Huck feels bad when he lies to Mary Jane, whom he admires a lot.

There are moments in life when one has to decide doing the right thing, or doing the thing that will benefit them individually. Similar to Huck's decision, many times it is beneficial to you and others to do what is necessary as opposed to what is right. Had Huck confessed that Jim was a slave, not only would Jim be taken away and sold back into slavery, but Huck would also face serious charges for taking care of a runaway slave. There are times when the necessities of others and oneself takes precedent over the universal concept of right and wrong.

Huck decides to fight for Jim and their friendship even when he knows the possible consequences. “You’ll say it’s dirty low-down business; but what if it is,” Huck insists to Tom that he will save Jim no matter what he said (Twain 227). Huck knows that saving Jim could easily be considered low-down, but Huck says that he is dirty and low-down as well, and that helping Jim is what he must do. He knows what he will be labelled as, but to him it is irrelevant. Their friendship and the bond they created travelling down the river is worth more to Huckleberry. Huck knows how society feels, but he decides to follow his heart anyways. Huck later sees how awful the lynching done to the duke and the king is, yet he still feels bad after knowing how awful they are. “Human beings can be awful cruel to each other,” Huck feels awful even though he didn’t really do anything (Twain 233). Huck’s conscience has come back to bite him about these men even though he had nothing to do with it. Huck knows that this lynching, tarred and feathered, is a painful and brutal punishment. He feels that even though they weren’t the best people they didn’t deserve this cruelty even though it’s what society is prone to do. Society sees these mean as ‘bad,’ and therefore think it is okay to basically torture the conmen. Huck knows that isn’t okay, even with knowledge of the men’s nature, freeing

Again, Huck describes feeling “wicked” and “ornery,” though this time he tries to justify his emotions with plausible insights into his upbringing; however, this is to no avail as Huck finds himself back in his perpetual state of self-deprecation. A key difference between Huck’s previous moral conundrum and this one is consistent religious reference, which is similarly reminiscent of Huck’s early morality. For example, Huck’s early rejection that Providence could love him is realized in this later scene. This example is what was previously referred to as the “religious enforcement of Huck’s emotions” and evidently does not subside; however, Huck, with his newfound empathy, now allows those emotions to lead his decision making. In doing this, Huck allows himself to surpass the status that religion attempts to fix him in. In this manner, the parallels between Huck’s early and late morals are necessary to show the extent of his shift in ideals and, moreover, Huck’s willful dislodging of his place in society, the thought of which had previously plagued him. Because of his connection with Jim, that relationship is the stable place that Huck needed and therefore his relationship to the greater society is unimportant, allowing Huck to make a definite and permanent decision of eternal hell (this idea reverts the seemingly immoral status of hell to a semblance of higher

The point that Ii am trying to relayreciprocate is that there are many different kinds of lies, and not only do we lie to other people without even noticing, but we also lie to ourselves. Lying has become a part of human nature, a part that we would not survive without. It has become almost an instinct and this shows by the way people don't even notice that they are doing it. One Of Ericsson’s key points is the consequences of telling the truth and why we lie. She says that by telling small lies we are protecting ourselves and protecting others.

This is shown when he is getting bored going to school all day long and having the same daily routine that he doesn’t enjoy, he states, “Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me.” This passage shows the fact that once Huck has too much expected or thrust upon him he needs to escape and clear his mind and he can do this because he has “freedom” that allows him to leave the house and do as he

it now so nobody won’t think of following me”(33), Huck says this to himself. He says this because he is sick of society keeping him down and being beaten by his

He refers to such a situation as “...so kind of strange and unregular” (141). What this highlights is one of the essential elements of the book, what Twain called a battle between “A good heart and a deformed conscience.” The “good heart” side of the argument is Huck’s desire to alleviate Mary Jane’s misery, and protect her and her family from the machinations of the duke and the king. The “deformed conscience,” or the way his experiences and upbringing have affected his character, is the side of him that wants to lie just to avoid any trouble that telling her the truth might cause him. Recognizing and exploring the interaction between these two sides of Huck, both of which are demonstrated in this passage, is essential in understanding his character. Finally, Huck comes to the conclusion that he will tell Mary Jane the truth, “...though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see where you’ll go”

Huck rejects lying early in the novel, a testament to his successful training bestowed upon him by the Widow Douglass and other townspeople. Huck begins the story by lecturing the

"so when I couldn't stand it no longer, I lit out. I got into my old rags, and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied” (Page 1). Right from the beginning you see that he doesn’t want anybody to control him. “Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.” (Page 116). Huck's goals are to get away from that controlling life that he was being forced to live and lead a continuation of the unrestricted life that he thrived for.

Topic Sentence: Throughout the novel, Huck travels to many places. His attitude changes as his moves from place to place, and it’s difficult to determine why. It might be due to the people he interacts with or how safe he feels in different situations. Huck has learned to lie out of necessity, and as he is introduced to the outside he questions the morality of it. While he’s living with Pap, Huck is tense, this drives him to lie more than he usually would. Here, it’s not out of malicious intent but just the need to survive each encounter with his intoxicated father. For example, when Pap finds Huck asleep with the gun, Huck doesn’t tell him the truth about why he has it because he knows that would only cause him more trouble.

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

WHO CAN CATCH A LIAR?’ , Ekman and O’Sullivan, 1991. What is the definition of lying or indeed deception? Well deception can be defined in many ways, but it was termed by Vrij (Vrij, 2000, p.6) as a successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another a belief, which the communicator considers to be untrue. Telling lies is a daily life event, which varies in quite complex ways depending on the situation the person is in and the person being lied to.