Running away as a child can be seen as a way to escape. A child can escape their parents, their responsibilities, and society as a whole. It is a way to get away from everything in one’s life and live naturally. This is very similar to how Huckleberry Finn decides to live his life in the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. In this story, set in the south before the Civil War South, Huck decides to abandon his life at home and live life on a raft, floating down the Mississippi river with a runaway slave Jim. On their journey, they meet people from different walks of life, engage in a decades long feud, and even attend a circus. However, this novel is not all fun and games. Mark Twain blatantly demonstrates his beliefs in …show more content…
A prominent example of this is shown when Huck visits the Grangerford family. The Grangerfords have been locked in a decades long “feud” with a nearby family, the Shepherdsons. The two families are willing to kill each other on sight and don’t even know how the feud started. However, the families attend church together with their guns between their knees. On page 171 the text states; “Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody ahorseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching—all about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and preforeordestination, and I don’t know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.” This text shows how society is corrupt, for multiple reasons. Not only are families who kill each other going to a sacred place together under a temporary cease-fire, they are also hearing a preacher speak about brotherly love and saying that it is a good sermon. Clearly, Twain is attempting to share his beliefs that many people who attend church are hypocritical, and that religion is …show more content…
Throughout the story, Mark Twain uses Huck to suggest that “natural life” is more desirable. The entire plot of this novel revolves around Huck and Jim floating down the Mississippi River on a raft and going on adventures each time they come to shore. However, as the story goes on, the reader realizes that when Huck and Jim get off the raft, they constantly meeting criminals and other bad people. Life on the raft is as peaceful as it gets, but when Huck is ashore, he meets slimy people, including the Duke and the King, some of the people involved in the feud, and Colonel Sherburn and Boggs. Huckleberry Finn and Jim also witness some extreme violence, including tarring, feathering, lynching, theft, murder, and quite simply, a lot of death. For example, even the gentle Mary Jane says that the Duke and the King should be “tarred and feathered.” (Twain 190) The fact that Huck sees so much death when he visits civilization goes right back to Twain’s obvious suggestion throughout the story that society is corrupt and unprincipled, and that Huck’s life on the raft is far more attractive. The next example of Huckleberry Finn enjoying the natural life occurs when he is taken away by his father. While he is living with his father he comes to enjoy the uncivilized life more than the way he lived with the Widow, despite the fact that his Pap is an
Summary: Through the voice of Huckleberry Finn, a deep criticism of racism and civilized society’s rules is narrated to the reader as Huck and Jim, escape from civilized society and set sail on a raft down the Mississippi river to slavery-free states. Both characters share a common goal: to be free of the rules that a civilized society places. Huck and Jim form an alternative family as they head down the river along with two white adult conmen they rescued, who commit many scams . These conmen are responsible for turning Jim into a local farmer
Angezah Fernandes Mr. Mattas Ap Language 30 Nov. 2015 Conformity As humans, our lives are revolved around the line that separates conformity and individuality. Conformity is a type of social influence that includes a change of belief or behavior to fit into a group. Many people can cross the line too far back or too far forward, thus being too much of a conformist or too much of an individual.
He affirms this rejection by stating, “I...struck through the woods and made for the swamp” (107). The peace of the “woods” and the “swamp”, becomes more apparent to Huck after Twain reveals the acceptance of violence in society. Later, when Huck and Jim reunite, Huck claims “there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t” (107). By Huck finally admitting to the cramping and smothering he felt at the Grangerfords, he implies that the freedom of the raft is more appealing to him.
Once he runs away from his father, Huck lives on a river with Jim. The river symbolizes freedom, and it becomes symbolic of Huck's journey to discover his natural virtue. In Mark Twain's novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the author develops Huck's conscience and morality through the characters
The progression of morality from the stark divide between right and wrong over the past twenty five hundred years into the highly variegated moral spectrum that is used today is the result of the division of ethics into seven moral prisms. The complexity of this moral spectrum deals with issues of duty, compassion, community, happiness, virtue, and self. This brings to light the moral permissibility of lying, when lying becomes the most intuitively moral option. Mark Twain, throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, blurs the lines between right and wrong; actively utilizing the moral spectrum that was not widely recognized until close to fifty years later. During Huck Finn’s adventures, he constantly runs into moral conflict; many of
When the characters undertake these journeys, they anticipate thrilling experiences but instead have disappointing realizations. For instance, Huck expects the whole trip to be lazily floating down the river, smoking, fishing, and talking to Jim (Twain 130). However, this illusion is soon shattered. As they continue south, Huck encounters many different communities and types of people. Their behavior leads him to an unexpected conclusion about society: “Well, it made me sick to see it…human beings can be awful cruel to one another” (245).
Huckleberry Finn is a story about a rambunctious young boy who adventures off down the Mississippi River. “The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain demonstrates a situation where a Huck tries to find the balance between what is right and what is wrong. Huck faces many challenges in which his maturity will play a part in making the correct decision for himself and his friend Jim. Huck becomes more mature by the end of the novel by showing that he can make the correct decisions to lead Jim to the freedom he deserves. One major factor where Huck matures throughout the novel is through his experience.
In this Southern society hypocrisy lies underneath religion and reputation, Huck and Tom just happened to point it out. When Miss Watson was explaining to Huck all about hell and how it was so bad he told her that he “wished {he} was there” (twain 10) she was so shocked and devastated because how horrible it was. This just shows hypocrisy because Miss Watson is explaining all about the bad place, that only the worst people go there and how terrible it is meanwhile she is enslaving innocent people. Huck also reveals hypocrisy when Miss Watson was telling him all about the need for prayer and how important it is in society and he asks why should he believe it and all she could say was that “its in the books” (Twain 17).
When they believed that his family is sick they said, “we are right down sorry for you, but we—well, hang it, we don’t want the smallpox” (91). The response of the two gentlemen instead of helping Huck was to give him money and send him elsewhere because they weren’t willing to put themselves at risk in anyway. Twain is asserting that people in society are constantly pressuring Huck to act in a civilized manner but are unable to act that way themselves. As a result of this, Huck is able to take advantage of the slave hunters’ selfishness in order to protect Jim even after his attack of conscience. We recognize that in this moment Huck is capable of resisting the rules of society and can see Jim as a person, not as property.
Wanda Sykes once quoted, “If you feel like there’s something out there that you’re supposed to be doing, if you have a passion for it, then stop wishing and do it.” This exhibits the idea of not letting others hold you back from pursuing a personal desire, or having a passion. Countless amounts of people follow what everyone else believes, but do not seem to recognize the truth behind what they’re following. Similarly, within The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and “Antigone,” both characters have a devotion for a specific situation. Additionally, these two literary characters have a strong passion, but ultimately face different opponents.
Huck and Jim’s adventures down the Mississippi make the theme of conflict between society and individual more apparent. During their journey Huck mentions, “Nothing could be better”(Twain 115). Huck is very content with Jim and Huck’s new life on the river, at least at the start. Being a runaway slave like Jim and Huck helping him, Huck questions at many points in the book whether he should continue to help Jim or turn him in and follow society’s rules about slaves. This could possibly be Huck’s most important individual conflict throughout the book, considering he questions his choice many times.
To begin, Twain targets Huckleberry Finn's innocence and uses it as a way to show that anyone being raised in a racist, pro-slavery America was conflicted between morals and laws. At first, Huck is a "rebel" in his own mind, so to say, and tries to avoid becoming "sivilized" from the Widow Douglas. He sticks to what he knows, and uses his experience with people and his own judgment to make decisions like an adult, something quite
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.
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.