Everybody has someone in his or her life who teaches him or her how to be a better person. Throughout the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses Jim, a slave, as a source of symbolism for Huck’s maturity. First, Jim teaches Huck about what it truly means to be civilized. Next, Jim shows Huck about the value of family. Lastly, Jim teaches Huck about racial inequality and how to accept people. In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim teaches Huck about civilization, family, and racial inequality.
Huckleberry Finn matures morally in his adventures when having to make decisions throughout his journey for the future of his life and his slave friend, Jim. Huck has grown up learning bad morals caused by living with his drunk and abusive father, and with no one to tell him otherwise, he keeps the same morals that his dad taught him. Fortunately, Huck is helped by Jim, a runaway slave who joins him on his journey and helps Huck develop his own morals with decisions Huck makes. Throughout Huck's adventures, he is put into numerous situations where he must use his own judgement to make decisions that will affect the morals Huck will carry with him throughout his life. Huck matures in the novel through his morals when he is confronted with life
Jim tells Huck he hit her for not listening to get to work, but he then finds out she has been recently made dea when she did not react to the door slamming shut from the wind. He realizes he hit her when she never even heard Jim to begin with. Jim was so distraught begging for forgiveness from the Lord and his daughter, because he would never forgive himself for his mistake. This shows Jim’s deep rooted connection with love of others and his humanity. Not only that, but Huck realizes he cares deeply for his family and is capable of emotions that otherwise racist ideologies have told him are not possible. Huck now believes that this cannot be the case since he sees Jim having strong familial ties with his own eyes. This example of Jim’s release of the minstrel mask makes Huck gain a higher opinion of him.
Mark Twain portrays Huck as a character superior to Tom by making Huck as the complete opposite of Tom. In this book, overall, Huck has foresight about in which event will happen; for example, Huck’s notable quote “I’ll go to hell” implies that he is completely aware of the fact that he will eventually get punished for his action, which was to release Jim--an act that is not accepted by the public. Additionally, Huck is introspective (deep), realistic, and mature; even though ironically, Huck lies in order to resolve the situation. Huck’s maturity is shown in his beliefs, where he believes that Jim (or possibly other black slaves) should be treated equally like any other whites and views the minorities as equal people. On the other hand, Tom simply believes Jim should be released just because Tom believed the story of releasing Jim would make a great adventure. Moreover, Tom’s overall craving for adventure exhibits his childlike and fantastic qualities, which contrasts Huck’s quality of being a mature boy. By describing Huck as a boy who is more thoughtful than Tom, Mark Twain deliberately makes Huck to be superior to Tom (which ultimately implies Twain’s contrast of realism and romanticism).
trying to run away from all of his problems and in the process runs into an escaped slave, Jim. Instead of turning Jim in, Huck helps him on his journey to the north. During the book Huck grows from a immature boy to a more respectable young man. Huck begins to see how different people can be. Throughout the story Huck grows as a character and that is because of the people he meets along the way. The portrayal of adults in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to help Huck to grow as a more mature and respectful person. Twain uses the King and the Duke, Jim, and Huck’s own father to help Huck develop as a more mature adult.
people based on their physical traits, such as skin color, and genetics. Race can be used as a mechanism for social division. As the novel unfolds, Huckleberry Finn’s perspective on race changes as he sees the importance for equality in Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
In Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain presents many complex social issues through the eyes of a boy on a series of amusing adventures. One prominent theme is that of race and slavery, although Twain presents a slightly more subtle theme, that of father figures. Twain furthers his theme using Huck’s actual father, Pap, and Jim, a runaway slave who accompanies Huck on his adventures. Huck’s very factual style of narration and passivity when dealing with Pap, shows the emotional distance he has placed between himself and his father, for his own protection. That emotional distance seems to carry over into the relationship he has with Jim, who adopts a paternal role. Huck seems unwilling to drop that protective
Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the relationship between Huck and Jim are the main topic of the whole book. They all had their own personality and characteristics.
Huck Finn felt guilty and sympathized for Miss Watson when he steals her slave because she never did anything wrong to Huck. Miss Watson treated him well and tried to make Huck a better person. Huck believes that stealing her slave will condemn him to hell. Huck realizes that Jim treated him well and carded for him as a father figure and decided he will go to hell. At first, Huck is very muddled about what the appropriate thing to do is. All along his society and upbringings have told him that slavery is rift and stealing is wrong. Huck begins to love Jim because he taught him how to be a better human being, and they soon become inseparable. Huck finally views him or as a slave but equal to everyone else in
In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim bond closely to one another, regardless of the fact that they belong to different ethnic groups. Huck, a coming-of-age teenage boy, lives in the Southern antebellum society which favors slavery. At the beginning of the book, Twain claims that “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; and persons attempting to find a plot will be shot” (Twain 2). Ironically, through his experiences with Jim, the uncivilized Huck gradually establishes his own moral beliefs, although sometimes struggling against the influence of society.
Judging someone for their race, ethnicity, or skin color is never portrayed as the right thing to do. However, these are some of the main themes in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This was taken place before the Civil War, when slavery was still legal. When Huck Finn and Jim meet, even though Jim is a slave, they connect immediately. Their friendship grows stronger and stronger as the novel continues, it got to the point where Jim was not only a friend, but a father figure to Huck. There was a couple of times where Huck realized that what he was doing was not only wrong, but illegal, and wondered if he should do the right thing, but decided against it. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck sees Jim as a slave, friend, and a father
Jim, a runaway slave, is the most influential individual when it comes to Huck’s moral development. During the beginning of the novel, Huck’s morals are primarily based on what he has learned from Miss Watson. Huck begins to become wary of such ideals that Miss Watson has imposed on him, and decided all he wanted “…was a change” (Twain 10). As Huck escapes from society by running away he had the chance of running into Jim on Jackson Island. During this time Huck displays his moral growth after playing a trick on Jim. Huck displays his moral growth because after placing a snake skin under Jim’s blanket, which eventually causes Jim to be bitten by a snake, he
All relationships have bumps in the road and hard times to overcome but in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the two main characters, Huck and Jim’s, relationship was special. They had a relationship that would change the outcome of millions of lives of slaves and people who were looked down upon. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be seen as the emergence of racial tolerance shown through the relationship of Huck and Jim. The way that Huck treats Jim on occasions such as when Jim told Huck about his family and Huck saw Jim as a normal human being with a family. Another occasion was when Huck was thinking about Jim and realized he was also white inside meaning he felt Jim was an equal.
Specifically, through the controversy of slavery at the time, Huck learns how to listen to his intuition and conscience. His slight hesitation escaping with Jim makes him question the authenticity of his morality. He says, “I begun to get it through my head that he was most free--and who was to blame for it? Why, me … But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could ‘a’ paddled ashore and told somebody” (Twain 87-88). At this stage in the novel, it is important to denote his ambivalence toward the situation. Though he helps Jim, he feels a sense of guilt for going against societal standards. Regardless, Huck has a myriad of opportunities to turn Jim in--and doesn’t. This verifies that Huck progresses in developing his maturity and poise. Naturally, as his bond with Jim cultivates, Huck unknowingly treats him as a human. Through Huck’s sensibility, he states, “It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no kings nor dukes at all … I hadn’t no objections, ‘long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn’t no use to tell Jim, so I didn’t tell him” (Twain 125). Correspondingly, Huck gains a consideration for Jim and his personal feelings, which he expresses nonchalantly through motley aspects of their journey. This also shows how his aspects of racism are changing; he starts to believe people are people, no matter
He considers himself to be above Jim. His opinion comes from his father’s words when they were together. During a drunken rant, he lamented the liberties enjoyed by a free black man: “they said he was a p’fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain’t the wurst. They said he could vote, when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to?” (34). [Huck’s father thinks even educated, free black people don’t deserve the same rights as white people.] Huck absorbs his father’s words, and although he cares for Jim, never views Jim as his equal. When Huck and Jim are having a disagreement, Huck gives up the argument easily, saying, “i see it warn’t no use wasting words--you can’t learn a nigger to argue” (86). Even when he compliments Jim, Huck’s words show his disregard for Jim’s race. After Huck and Jim narrowly escape a wrecked ship, Jim says he doesn’t want any more adventures, because of the amount of danger it put him into. Huck acknowledges Jim’s intelligence, saying, “he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger” (82), but his compliment implies that he is surprised that a black man could be