The alert reader of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn must not only appreciate the complex ethical challenges Huck faces, but also evaluate whether Huck himself is moral. Throughout the whole novel, Huck remains forced to make many decisions based on his moral values. Dealing with his abusive father and deciding whether he should continue helping Jim escape arise as some of the main problems Huck faces. The way he handles those problems ultimately exhibits Huck as a morally bold protagonist of the novel. In the beginning of the story, Huck’s alcoholic, abusive, and ignorant father proves himself the source of Huck’s ethical problems. Pap, Huck’s father, persists strongly against Huck’s education, believes that Huck should pursue a
Huck was granted the privilege by the widow to attend school although, when pap found out he came back and took Huck and didn’t let him set foot on school grounds again which he made quite clear in the book when he said “you lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear. ”(21)Pap couldn’t stand the fact that his son was doing better which was also stated by Paps in the book “I can’t and here you’re a swelling yourself up like this, I ain't the man to stand for it-you here. ”(21)
In the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain creates many central questions for his reader to consider. One of these questions is since Huck grew up less civilized than normal children, does this affect his morality? In the story Huck has an alcoholic, abusive father he tried escaping from. His childhood was not that same as most other children who had a full family and a single home. But, this didn’t affect his morality, it might have made him a better person.
He explains to us that Huck Finn came from a very underprivileged lower class Caucasian family; and how as a young boy he never had a role model of a father to look at. Additionally, he never learned the valuable lessons in life and how to clearly differentiate between right and wrong. His father was portrayed to us as a drunk thug, who did not comprehend the responsibility the man of the family has. Instead young Finn had a philanthropic widow as his warden, she attempts on multiple occasions to transform Huck from a neglected boy to an erudite man. She faces a great deal of resilience from Huck.
What is right and wrong? How should I live our lives and treat those around us? These are some of the basic questions that every human has to wrestle with throughout their life. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a book that deals with that struggle. From a first glance, the story is about a mischievous boy who runs away with a slave named Jim down the Mississippi river.
Individual vs Society “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is largely an example of humanity 's struggle between societies morals and their own individual beliefs. Throughout the book, Huck goes through a roller coaster of trying to decide whether Jim is a human being or a slave. His development is back and forth through most of the book. Huck begins his journey by humbling himself to Jim. Their relationship evolves into a friendship.
After living with Pap as a young boy and continually getting beat up, Huck looks for a way out. Huck shows early signs of maturity by escaping to Jackson’s Island while Pap is asleep and by covering the house in pigs blood to make it look as if he was murdered. While still in the very beginning of the novel, Huck has already matured tremendously. Another experience that Huck goes through is when Jim turns to Huck and says, “Pooty soon I 'll be a-shout 'n ' for joy, en I 'll say, it 's all on accounts o ' Huck; I 's a free man, en
It would be hard to argue that Huckleberry Finn is not a mischievous novel. However, in classifying the novel that way, the temptation is to create an overly simplistic binary relationship between Huck and society. However, though Huck is in many ways an outsider, he does not resist establishing himself within various people. Huck is a loner at times, but he needs people too, and he is open to spending a little time until something happens. This realization is important in studying Huck's moral decisions since his awareness of contingencies is bound up in his sense of his surroundings.
Huck Finn's moral dilemma is something common in our society today. In its simplest form the moral dilemma can be found anytime someone helps a person in need, and more specifically it highlights human rights violations and social problems. This is because the moral dilemma in Huck Finn appears when someone is doing something to help someone when they’re unsure if it's the right thing to do. Helping someone is always the right thing to do, but in Huck’s situation, because of slavery and the values that the people of the time held, helping a slave was a moral dilemma. Should you risk yourself to save someone else?
In addition, Pap’s inclination of Huck’s education is opposite of it should be. Little education keeps his son from being able to do better than he can, the motto of nearly all parents. On top of that, he has taken advantage
Twain uses Satire when Aunt Sally said, "its lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt" when Huck clearly told Aunt Sally that it "killed a nigger". Twain uses this to poke fun of social hypocrisy during the Pre-Civil War era. During that time, one would be considered a good white person if they attend church and when they take care of their family and other people. Aunt Sally represents the good and common people during this time era, as she consider African Americans more of a property than a human being. Twain uses Aunt Sally to show the reader that social hypocrisy was something that is idiotic and it also revealed to the readers the corrupt society Huck Finn lives
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic novel that takes the reader on a series of thrilling adventures full of life threatening situations, racism, and slavery. The author Mark Twain, uses the novel to highlight the flaws in society by creating a character like Huck, whose personal sense of morals and justice are more noble than those of the very people trying to civilize him. Throughout this captivating novel Huck endures his fair share of trouble and morally challenging decision but he always comes out on top by following his heart and doing what he feels to be right.
Mark Twain emphasizes the theme that a person's morals are more powerful than the corrupt influence of society in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Based on how Huck Finn views the world and forms his opinions, he does not know the difference between right and wrong. In the novel, Huck escapes civilized society. He encounters a runaway slave, Jim, and together they travel hopes of freedom. But along the way, Huck and Jim come across troubles that have Huck questioning his motives.
All Huck needs is to believe in himself and not worry about any family. Pap is a terrible father to Huck “he is a monster, a vicious child abuser Mark Twain and Manhood 101 nouncing how the law could stand between him and "a man 's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising," but actually bemoaning his inability to grab Huck 's money. Pap 's only sense of worth comes from asserting his meager white supremacy” (Obenzinger 101). Huck would rather act as though he was dead than live a life with a man like Pap as his father. After Pap finally comes back to see Huck and decides that he wants to live with him Huck starts to get uneasy.
In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the reader gauges morality through the misadventures of Huck and Jim. Notably, Huck morally matures as his perspective on society evolves into a spectrum of right and wrong. Though he is still a child, his growth yields the previous notions of immaturity and innocence. Likewise, Mark Twain emphasizes compelling matters and issues in society, such as religion, racism, and greed. During the span of Huck’s journey, he evolves morally and ethically through his critique of societal normalities.
Huck moves towards being a conscientious and moral member of society as he progresses through the novel even though the odds are stacked against him; raised in a situation where he had no positive influences and faced with countless situations where acting out of self interest was the easier option, Huck became a righteous character who we should all wish to emulate. Though Huck’s father served as his main, and first, influence, he lacked a moral compass. He was against Huck attending school and often robbed other people and just called it ‘borrowing’. Huck’s dad was depicted “[laying] drunk with the hogs in yard” (8).