The Implied Morals Within The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Morals and lessons that are found in literature help shape society and readers. Within his own book, Mark Twain mentions that he isn’t implying any morals or motives in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. However, the book contradicts that statement. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain does contain morals: Always go with instincts, never be too quick to trust, and be firm about morals .
The first moral is to go with the instincts. Throughout the book Huck has to make many moral decisions, one in which he chooses not to send the letter to Miss Watson about Jim. Within the time period and limited time Huck has, his gut feeling to not send the letter lead to Jim’s freedom.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, author Mark Twain uses Huck to demonstrate how one’s conscience is an aspect of everyday life. The decisions we make are based on what our conscience tells us which can lead us the right way or the wrong way. Huck’s deformed conscience leads him the wrong way early on in the chapters, but eventually in later chapters his sound mind sets in to guild him the rest of the way until his friend Tom Sawyer shows up. Society believes that slaves should be treated as property; Huck’s sound mind tells him that Jim is a person, a friend, and not property. Society does not agree with that thought, which also tampers with Huck’s mind telling him that he is wrong. Though Huck does not
American author Mark Twain was one of the most influential people of his time. Twain is perhaps best known for his traditional classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a novel about an adventurous boy named Huck Finn as he traverses about on the Mississippi. Under first impressions, Huckleberry Finn would be considered nothing but a children’s tale at heart written by the highly creative Mark Twain. However one interprets it, one can undoubtedly presume that Twain included personal accounts within its pages, humorous and solemn opinions on the aspects of the diverse societies around him during his life. Throughout the entire story, Huck Finn would often come into conflict between choosing what was consciously right and what was morally
Although he predicts society will deem him to be "a low down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum," he prefers to be shunned and to risk punishment and shame for the sake of freeing Jim (Twain 43). Clearly, Huck's fondness for Jim is evident when Huck intends to send a letter to Miss Watson returning Jim but chooses to rip it to save him instead. Huck responds, "I'll right, then, I'll go to hell'- and he tore it up" (Twain 214). Huck accepts his rebellious nature and terrible fate to hell as he escapes from civilized society and into a place driven by his instincts. Jim's desire for freedom puts Huck in a moral dilemma because he must decide whether to follow his innate sense of morality or the restrictive guidelines of society.
Huck Finn, a narcissistic and unreliable young boy, slowly morphs into a courteous figure of respect and selflessness. After Pap abducts the young and civilized Huck, Huck descends into his old habits of lies and half-truths. However, upon helping a runaway slave escape, Huck regains morality and a sense of purpose. Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck lies to characters, casting the authenticity of the story into doubt but illustrating Huck’s gradual rejection of lying for himself and a shift towards lying for others.
Throughout the classic novel of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain we see a lot of moral development with the main character Huckleberry Finn. Throughout the story Huck’s friendships greatly influence his moral identity. Throughout the series of events that unfold upon our main character, Huck Finn, we see huge moral leaps in the way he thinks that are influenced by that friendships he makes on his journey. He starts the book as a young minded individual with no sense morals other than what has been impressed onto him and ends up as a self empowering individual. Through the friendships he makes with Tom Sawyer, Jim, and the Duke and King we see big moral leaps with Huck.
Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is perhaps one of the most controversial novels the North American Continent has ever produced. Since its publication more than a hundred years ago controversy has surrounded the book. The most basic debate surrounding Twain's masterpiece is whether the book's language and the character of Jim are presented in a racist manner. Many have called for the book to be banned from our nation's schools and libraries. Mark Twain's novel is about a young boy who was raised in the south before slavery was abolished, a place where racism and bigotry were the fabric of every day life. The novel is the account of how Huck Finn, who is a product of these
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a book about how Huck matures throughout his many different experiences in the story. As Guy Cardwell says in his overview on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “The voice of Huck as narrator is of first importance: his moral development gives the book configuration of a Bildungsroman” (Cardwell 1). He shows growth before he leaves on the river, as he travels along the river, and at the places he stops along the river. He makes many decisions on his own. His decisions are on things such as the good and bad in people, religion, friendship, and morals to name a few.
Smith summarizes Jim’s morality by showing his willingness to help others and his want to achieve his desires. Thus, Jim enhances the topic of moral code by depicting how his hardships do not discourage him, but rather give him motivation to continue upholding his strong ethical principles. Conclusively, Jim plays the role of a guide for Huck during their journey, while also bringing questions of morality to Huck, affecting him in unfamiliar ways.
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
People in today's society often rationalize morality so they feel better about not helping or doing the right thing. For example, pedestrians often don't help homeless people on the street. The people tell themselves that the homeless person deserved it, even though they do not know for sure, and they rationalize, so they feel better about their decision. In the novel Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain suggests that people rationalize morality to help them accept immoral acts. Twain demonstrates this idea in the setting, where society accepts slavery and the characterization of supporting characters in the novel.
Huckleberry Finn made the staple moral decision of the novel regarding his traveling companion Jim. As described earlier, Huck grew up in a time of prevalent racism. He realized as he was taking part in this journey with Jim that he was actually helping him to escape from slavery, and become a free man. Everyone from his hometown would forever look down upon him for carrying out such an action, for Miss Watson never did anything to deserve her slave to be stolen. Huck knew this was the case, and was truly stuck at a crossroads. He could presumably go to Hell for assisting in such a sin, or stop the adventure and return Jim to his state of slavery. Initially, he wrote a note to Miss Watson describing to her the current situation, would have sent it to her, which would have resulted in Jim becoming captured and sent back up to his previous owner. However, Huck began to think about how important he had become to Jim, and really how much Jim meant to him. “But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind…and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the
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;
Morality has always been defined as having either a good or evil conscious. There is always a choice that a character makes that defines their moral integrity in a literary work and distinguishes them as the hero. In Mark Twain’s story, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, not only does Huck encounters a number of moral circumstances where he or other characters displays situations in which moral ethics is called to questioned, but it proves that despite the religious influence and social expectation, it is through Huck that in order to do what is morally right, one must challenge the moral teaching of the world. Through observation of his world, Huck makes morally ambiguous choices that though may be against his moral teachings. Choice
After this Huck spent all his energy on stealing Jim from the Phelps family, and he did not even feel guilty about it. At the beginning of the novel, Huck believed that slavery was right and that it was not immoral to support slavery. By the end of the novel, Huck had become truly moral because he realized that everyone was just human. Jim's presence in this novel and in Huck's adventure allowed Huck to achieve this great moral growth, It was through Jim that
You can observe that in this association moral of Huckleberry Finn became the clearest. On the main one hands, “in his first years, Huck wasn’t taught any concepts, and the only ones he has experienced since that time are those of rural Missouri, where slave-owning is merely one kind of possession and it is not at the mercy of critical pressure” (Bennett). In this manner, whether it is accepted by him or not, an environment comes with an effect on Huckleberry. Alternatively, Huck allows Jim to flee and helps him if their pursuing travels. This fact obviously shows that except the common rural Missouri moral Huckleberry has another one, which makes him take action just how he achieved it, helping