Convention In Huck Finn

Imagine a character whose morals grow throughout the novel as well as develops into a mature and sophisticated man. This is what a bildungsroman novel is all about, however this is not Huck Finn. Throughout the entirety of the novel not once does Huck show any means of growth or change in maturity. Huck doesn’t know where he belongs in the world and never finds out in the end. He runs away to the west to avoid the convention of society and expectations of him in society. Convention is the implementation of social norms created by society to say what is right and what is wrong. It is safe to say that anything created by humans and their society therefore, deals with convention. Due to this reasoning it shows no growth in his character to overcome

While Huck and Jim are on the river they loose sight of each other in thick fog. Huck pretends to say that Jim was dreaming this whole thing up and he was “ a tangle-headed old fool” (Twain 154). Huck states that he really didn’t disappear he had been sleeping like Jim; however, Jim knew he was lying to him because of the branches and debris collected against the raft. Therefore, Jim becomes sad and angry with him because he could not understand as to why Huck, his friend, would lie to him. Huck’s reasoning for this is once again a prank. He thinks it will be funny to prank Jim again so he decides to say that what Jim is saying about the two of them floating away in the fog didn’t actually happen, but that it was merely a dream. Jim believes him until he sees all of the debris on the raft and therefore knows that they have traveled apart and once again come back together. Jim then cannot understand why Huck would do this to him so he gets angry and sad and isolates himself in the wigwam. Huck admits to himself that what he did was wrong and it really hurt his feelings. He does think this but he doesn’t really want to apologize. “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a [slave] (Twain 158). He believes this to be wrong but likes Jim too much as a friend to not do it. This shows his constant compassion for Jim but he still isn’t listening to

He goes from playing a trick on Jim which hurts him physically, to saving his life, and in doing so himself so he doesn’t get in trouble for helping an escaped slave, and then finally he plays another prank on Jim, which almost ruins his friendship with Jim. Through his constant compassion and love for Jim he goes against what convention sees as wrong and apologizes to Jim. However, he does it with a lot of hesitation and embarrassment. This shows that Huck’s compassion for Jim grew but didn’t change his morality and character at all. This is because he had compassion for Jim in the beginning of the novel and all it did was grow but it still didn’t affect the way he felt about his actions he was doing towards Jim. Throughout the novel Huck finds Jim’s pain to be funny and wants to mess with him. Therefore, Huckleberry Finn is not a bildungsroman novel but in fact the opposite. Huck never morally changes or becomes a more mature character that does what he wants to do. Instead he stays as the same person but leaves the place in which he doesn’t meld with. He flees to a place of nature and not yet convention to get away from the battle that is inside of him: whether he should do what he feels is right or do what he is told by the other people in his life. He still doesn’t know what he should do so therefore, he hasn’t evolved throughout the