Moral Confusion Of Huckleberry Finn Society Essay

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 encounters a frequent amount of circumstances where he or other characters are put into situations in which morality is called into question. This proves that regardless of religious influences and social expectations, it is through Huck to do what is morally right, he must challenge the moral teaching of his world and society. Through his observation, Huck makes some poor choices that may be against his moral teachings. The society

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.

Furthermore, Huck internally criticizes Jim’s talk about “saying he would steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm,” and states that it was a “lowering of him” (16). Huck’s lack of moral development epitomizes here, as he criticizes a “n*****” for his utopian vision of a peaceful life with his family. Huck’s conscience starts to attack him in this moment as he no longer thinks about Jim as his friend and starts to acknowledge that, in reality, he’s a black person. Although it appears that Huck is moral since he helped Jim escape, Huck doesn’t disapprove of the institution of slavery; he only helped Jim because he values their friendship. This is further exemplified when Huck makes the decision to take the canoe and go tell on Jim, though he tells Jim that he will go and check if they’re in Cairo. Twain juxtaposes Jim’s two possible futures, one of freedom, and the other of enslavement, to show the influence Huck’s choice will have. When Jim calls out “‘Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck;

In the beginning, Huck is like all the town people and a follower that went with the norms of society he didn’t want to stand out. One example is when Huck’s morals seem to show no concern about Miss Watson’s ownership of Jim. Huck’s mentality thought it was perfectly normal to treat the slaves as a piece of property, play tricks for one’s personal amusement, and have the slaves do all the work. Huck uses his moral sense to expose hypocrisy in others and to try to correct such situations if possible. It’s very ironic that Miss Watson claiming to be Christian lets society norms influence her. Not only that, society was a hypocrite, love your neighbor and have an African-American as your slave. Huck let’s go of all the misguide concepts from the society. Huck could see how wrong his action towards Jim has been. Without the pivotal scene Huck wouldn’t have a stand up and truly analysis the norms of society. There is an evolution between the old Huck we meet in the beginning. Now, he slowly starts to change and matures “I know’d [Jim] was white inside,” indicates that Huck sees Jim as a human. Huck see’s Jim through the eyes of a human not as a white man. He is beginning to slowly escape the attachment of the white’s see. Twain want Huck to overcome all racists thinking and look at African-Americans as people with feelings, families, and friendships, even with

There are many instances throughout the book where Huck doesn't do what's considered morally right in society back then. One example of this is when Huck is struggling to decide whether or not he should listen to his heart and treat Jim like a normal human being or if he should listen to his conscience and turn Jim in to the slave hunters like any other white man or woman would do back then, but he just cant get himself to do it because he knows that Jim is a great friend who has, on multiple occasions, risked his life and also his freedom to save Huck. Huck tells Jim "I said I

Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a coming of age story that focuses on Huck’s development of a personal sense of morality. In the course of his adventures, Huck experiences the ugliness of society: bigotry, corruption, and hypocrisy. Huck determines for himself that what is often considered acceptable and estimable by society is morally reprehensible.

When Huck found an island to stay on that was along the river that he would be traveling, he met Miss Watson’s runaway slave, Jim. At first, Huck was hesitant because he had been taught his whole life that slavery was a normal, and acceptable, phenomenon. However, Huck felt that he owed it to Jim to help him get to freedom. This is one of the first examples of Huck becoming a favorable and moral person. Huck and Jim had this conversation that showed Huck’s moral development early in the story. “But mind, you said you wouldn’t tell- you know you said you wouldn’t tell, Huck’ ‘Well, I did. I said I wouldn’t, and I’ll stick to it. Honest injun, I will. People would call me a low-down abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum- but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t a-going back there, anyways” (Twain 51). Here it is proven how even though Huck was taught that slavery was acceptable, he knew that he should save Jim because it was the morally appropriate thing to

However, Huck also often feels torn between what is right and wrong. He wants to help Jim escape into slavery because Jim is his friend, but feels guilty about this since Jim is a slave. Because helping a runaway slave was considered sinlike in Huck’s time period, Huck states that he would go to Hell to help Jim in the quote, “all right then, I’ll go to hell.” (Twain) Huck is confused in the beginning of the novel, not seeing the importance of certain practices in religion, such as reading about dead men in the Bible. Twain also has these feelings towards religion, for he believes in God but not certain practices of Christianity.

Lawrence Kohlberg, a psychologist in the field of moral education, identified three stages that explain human moral behavior. The first stage says someone’s moral development is based on doing the right thing to avoid punishment, the second says one’s morals are built on what is acceptable in society and obedience to the law, and the third stage, which very few are in, says that morals are decided upon one’s own judgement and concern for the welfare of others. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, tells the tail of a young boy named Huck and his many adventures with a runaway slave named Jim. This novel also outlines the moral development of Huck as he gradually passes through different stages of morality much like these. Judging morality based on whether someone does the right thing is impossible since it relies on opinion, so this leaves morality to be judged based on how well someone develops their own sense of right and wrong and acts according to those beliefs. Huck becomes a moral person by the end of the story.

Imagine a world where everyone is perfect, everyone is the same cookie cutter image, and everyone is nice. Pretty boring huh. Now let's get to the real world where nobody is perfect, everyone is different, and only a few are not corrupt. The story of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain contains many corrupt aspects of people’s lives. Huck Finn is the story of a boy, named Huck, and his journey down the Mississippi River. Huck is thrown into many situations which help display the person Huck actually is. Through Huck’s encounters with Miss Watson to Pap to Tom to Jim to Grangerfords and so on, throughout his journey, Huck’s mind progresses and he starts to become more aware of his surroundings and what right from wrong is. Twain exploits many characters in this book, and helps the reader get an inside look of how the characters truly act. In reality Twain goes into heavy detail in socializing the aspect of greed throughout the story. Greedy people negatively affect others because they only think of themselves.

He shows that although they are commendable people, their thoughts and mindsets are fraudulent. Society corrupts the minds of good people into believing lies such as slaves are not people. Twain condemns the racist persona society has deceived people into accepting and tries to divulge this message through his white characters. This book cannot be a racist novel simply because its message and symbols all shame a racist society. In addition, hypocrisy is exposed in society through two rich, white families.

One that’s always on the lookout, and ain’t a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further.” Here, Huck feels that Jim being sold to the Phelps was God’s way of revealing that He is watching Huck and that Huck needs to turn from his wicked ways and back to God. This feeling originates from Huck’s teachings as a child. He was taught that God intended slavery and that theft was a sin, for it was one of the Ten Commandments. Therefore, he believes that he is going to hell for helping Jim escape because he is stealing him from Miss Watson.

Even though Huck’s first thought was to write to Tom Sawyer and give up Jim’s whereabouts, and allow Miss Watson to regain her ‘property’, this concious effort clashes with Huck’s growing sense of personal morality and current reason. Even knowing that he is jeapordizing his reputation by helping a “nigger get his freedom”(Twain, 160), he’s no longer motivated by self-serving attitudes but sees the value of Jim’s freedom as a fellow human and can’t bear that he’d spend his life sentenced to be owned by strangers for “forty dirty dollars”(Twain, 160). This reality leads him to rip up the letter, confessing he would go to Hell for this choice: ‘I took [the letter] up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things. … I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” – and tore it up’

In the novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck is considered a moral person in an immoral society because he was raised in a different way than all the other people he encounters. Unlike the other people that were born and raised with certain biased opinions, Huck had to make his own moral compass because he doesn’t trust other people’s judgment because most of the time they’ve let him down many times. There are several times in the book where Huck’s good morality is shown, one of them is that as he continues his journey with Jim, they develop a bond. This bond becomes so strong that he begins to listen to his own conscience and see Jim as an equal to himself, there is even a point in the story when Huck would rather “go to hell” for saving Jim, even though at first they were “awful thoughts and awful words” he knew he’d “let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming” (207).

“Although probably no other work of American literature has been the source of so much controversy, Mark Twain’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is regarded by many as the greatest literary achievement in America has yet produced” ( Telgen 1.) In the novel the central character, Huck, realizes the wrongs of racisms, even though he was brought up with strong racists’ values. He meets a fellow slave named, Jim, who opened his eyes and change his views on racism. As Huck and Jim journey together, the portrayal of Jim changes because Huck matures and grows. Jim becomes the friend, guide, and father-figure that Huck has lacked. Mark Twain’s focus on slavery in the Antebellum period of his novel while living in a post-Civil War society exposes the inherent racism that is still staining America and Twain’s main purposes in producing this was his wish to bring attention to some of societies cruel, suppress, and uncivilized believes.