Lies In Huckleberry Finn Research Paper

In this section, insight into the character of Jim is portrayed. Jim comes across as sincere and trustworthy. The loyalty of Jim and Huck to each other begins to be seen. An example of Jim’s loyalty is seen when Jim is overjoyed to find Huck is still alive after they are separated in the fog. During this section, it begins to be apparent that Jim would be willing to sacrifice to be sure that Huck is safe but Huck does not yet return those feelings. During this section, Huck’s moral dilemma about helping a slave escape begins to surface. The fact that the relationship is strengthening is revealed when Huck lies about having smallpox on their raft in order to prevent Jim from being caught as a slave. Huck again assumes several identities during this section, which reveal much about him. On the raft, Huck is very mature and responsible. He becomes the son of a

Huck tries to paddle back to Jim and the raft, but the fog is too thick and the river to rough, forcing him to wait for things to clear up. After a lonely time adrift, Huck reunites with Jim, who is asleep on the raft. He wakes Jim up and proceeds to trick him into thinking that Jim dreamed up their separation, and he had been worried about Huck being dead for nothing. Jim is quick to realize he had been tricked, and gets mad at Huck for making him seem foolish after he had been so worried and scared for Huck’s safety. “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger,” (148) Huck says, showing moral courage in willing to apologize to Jim after realizing what he did was wrong, even though society would say

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

The most negative liars in the whole novel, though, are the Duke and the King. They are accomplished con-artists who make it their life to lie and trick the naïve public out of their money. In fact, they are introduced to Huck and Jim while they are fleeing from an angry mob: one for selling a paste to remove tartar from teeth that takes a good deal of the enamel off with it and the other because he was caught drunk after running a temperance sobriety revival meeting. Every lie of theirs is completely self-serving and wicked. The Duke and the King are truly antagonists because they are able to betray everyone, including the people who save them and take care of them, Jim and Huck. When their cons don’t work well, they sell Jim to the Phelps, telling them he is a runaway. But to the Duke and the King’s knowledge, Jim belongs to Huck.

Since its first publication in 1884, Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has proven to be one of history’s most controversial novels; especially recently, the novel has often been banned by schools and censored by libraries. Characters in the book are constantly using disparaging language toward slaves, and the repeated use of the word “nigger” makes many sensitive and offended. Critics denounce the novel and Mark Twain as racist for this word being insulting and politically incorrect and for its depiction of black people and how they are treated. However, Twain was not attempting to perpetuate racism; on the contrary, he used satire to expose the ignorance and paradoxical views held by many in America at that time.

They see a town and decide Huck should go and see if this town is Cairo. Huck plans to give up Jim when they get to the city but Jim says, “Huck; you’s be de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole Jim’s got now” (Twain 135). Huck struggles with whether or not he will turn Jim in. As Huck is paddling to the shore, he meets a few men who want to search his raft for escaped slaves. Huck concocts an elaborate lie and acts grateful to the men, saying no one else will help them. He convinces the men that his family on that raft has smallpox. The men, deathly afraid of smallpox, leave Huck forty dollars out of pity and leave. Here, Huck actively decides not to turn Jim in. Huck gets closer to realizing that Jim is a person that deserves rights. Huck struggles between what he thinks is right and what society thinks is right. Huck starts to think for himself, branching out from what society has told him to do from when he was a boy. This is a great leap for Huck in his growing maturity and morality.

Jim was the only person Huck had for the majority of their adventure and always had to be dependable on him. In Document F, this is the part where Huck comes up with the plan on how to save Jim from the Phelps’ farm. This primarily shows how Huck saw Jim as his friend, “‘Here’s the ticket. This hole’s big enough for Jim to get through, if we wrench off the board,” (Document F). This shows Huck’s plan to help set Jim free and he wouldn’t be going through this trouble if he thought Jim was worthless. He views Jim more as an equal since he believes that he should be free. In Document B, we see how frightened Jim is that Huck is going to tell where Jim is, however, Huck is thinking the complete opposite. Huck believes that it is right to not tell on Jim, “‘I ain’t agoing to tell, and I ain’t agoing back there anyways.’” (Document B). Since Huck won’t say anything about where Jim is, it shows how he sees Jim more as a friend and trusts him enough to go on an adventure together. Jim and Huck truly get to know each other on their adventure together. They get to share many laughs, smiles and talks. With these talks is where Huck gets to also view Jim as someone to look up

     On Huck and Jim’s journey to Cairo, Jim begins to speak about when he is free he will go and find his children and take them from the slave owner. This rubbed Huck the wrong way; his standards of Jim had been lowered because, from Huck’s point of view, why would Jim steal his children away from a man who has done nothing to him? Huck’s conscience began to come into play and he had made up his mind: He was going to turn Jim in when they reach shore. He was sure of it until Jim began to sweet talk Huck, telling him that Huck was the only white man that had ever kept a promise to him. This comment went directly to Huck’s heart; he could not possibly

The two men live a dangerous life that any moment, they could be captured, especially Jim. One of the many times that Huck could have told on Jim, was when some men approached him looking for five black men run off that night. Instead of letting the men know that he have one black man with him, Huck told them that it is a white man with him. Despite saying that, the men still want to make sure. So, Huck has to make excuses as to not let

Throughout Huckleberry Finn, Huck sees countless people get taken for a fool and believe foolish things. Most obvious are the people that get taken in by the King and Duke, but even earlier in the book, Huck sees people believing untrue things. For instance, when Huck tells the watchman that he has a family that

"It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no king nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds" (Twain 125). Twain illustrates here that these guys are frauds and would lie and trick others for personal gain. They gained a raft (transportation), they also gained the respect from Jim which they did not deserve, and not just that either. They exploited the ignorance of Huck and Jim to make them serve them as if they were actually kings and dukes.

Following Huck’s escape from his father’s cabin, Huck escapes with Jim, rafting the Mississippi while he becomes his older self who helps others, a sharp contrast to the kidnapped Huck who only aided himself. When Huck encounters Judith Loftus, he lies, telling her that he is a girl by the name of Sarah Mary Williams, and later that he is a runaway apprentice called George Peters (69). Huck continues lying for himself, reflecting the depth of Huck’s descent while with his father; however, the lie also helps Jim, so Huck displays a tiny amount of selflessness. Farther down the river, Huck lies to several men and tells them that Jim is a white man who has smallpox (101). By this point in the story, Huck begins lying to help others such as Jim, not just himself. He slowly loses the overwhelming desire to protect only himself that he developed while with his father. Huck

In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck uses methods of deception to protect himself and Jim; however, in other cases you uses deception to re-establish his power over Jim. For example in the fog scene, in which Huck manages to convince Jim to discount his experience of getting separated, Jim believes that it was all a dream because that is what Huck said. Therefore, Jim trusts the words of Huck over his own experience. Seeing Jim's reaction to this lie, Huck reinforces the power he has as a white male in society in the late 1800s. However, Huck also uses deception, mainly in the form of disguises, to protect his identity, as well as Jim's identity.

In the novel by Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the reader comes to know Huck as a boy who often likes to lie mostly in order to get himself out of trouble. Huck’s greatest lie of all was when he decided that it was morally right to conceal the truth in a world that was morally wrong. He had chosen to do what was right according to his conscience rather than do what was socially and legally right at the time. He would rather his soul burn in hell than to send his friend back to the cruel and unjust world of slavery. Huck knows his best friend Jim was a man and had feelings just like him.

Whereas Huck and Jim hide their reality from others and keep up different facades in order to stay safe from society. Lying and deception play a large role throughout Mark Twain’s, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as it is both a reason and an escape from conflict. Both lying and deception are also used as a way to show the stark difference between appearances and reality because lying is what hides the reality from Huck and the rest of the characters within the novel.