Author Mark Twain, in his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, satirically criticizes the hypocrisy of nineteenth century America’s moral condition in their justification of slavery.The novel details Huck, a young boy, and his journey with a runaway slave, Jim and recounts their adventure. They encounter humorous situations and get into trouble along the way. Twain’s purpose is to ridicule the moral condition of Huck’s society in their rationalization of slavery and does so by employing satirical elements of pathos, absurdity and irony.
In “The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn,” Jonathan Bennett presents the difficulty between sympathy and morality. Although the fictional story "Huckleberry Finn" is in the title, Bennett uses also uses Heinrich Himmler, Jonathan Edwards, Wilfred Owen. Bennett described their morality as "bad" assuming the readers would agree with him. Most of the time the person does not realize their morality is bad because of social norms. While morality and sympathy can be in a constant battle, ultimately the one that wins is what the person is more obligated to.
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
In this selected passage Huck decides he is not going to send the letter he wrote to Miss Watson with the intention of turning Jim in. Huck initially writes the letter because he is thinking about God and his state of sin, as he believes he is committing a sin by stealing another person’s property. He never sends the letter because he realized how much he trusts Jim and doesn’t see him as his property, but rather as a best friend. Previously he has stayed with Jim because it was easy, but this scene marks the time when he is able to stay by Jim’s side even when he believes it will come at a great personal cost.
The widow, Miss Watson, takes Huck into a closet to pray, and tells him to pray every day so he will get what he wants. Huck tries to pray daily, but becomes disappointed when all he gets is a fish-line with no hooks, when he prayed extra hard for hooks. “By-and-by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn’t make it out no way” (19). When he asks Miss Watson about it, she tells him praying brings spiritual gifts. Unable to see any use for that sort of thing, Huck decides praying is probably not worth his time. Huckleberry Finn, an illiterate white trash boy who is at the bottom of society’s hierarchy, narrates Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain put the novel in the voice of Huck for his very literal thinking. His realistic views and perceptions provide much of the ironic humor of the novel. Huck simply reports what he sees, and the monotone narration allows Twain to show a realistic view of the common ignorance, slavery, and inhumanity that took place.
In the novel, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” the main character Huck Finn learns how to make better decisions. He realizes how his decisions will affect other people, specifically, his best friend Jim. Huck begins the novel with no direction or guidance, living with his drunk and abusive father. Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas struggle to try to teach Huck how to have good judgement and how to be a good person. Huck is also guided and taught by the runaway slave, and Huck’s best friend, Jim. Throughout the novel, Huck is challenged to look within himself and make good judgement that will affect himself and the people around him, and he gets better at doing this throughout the novel.In the beginning of the novel, there are many examples of Huck being immature and not thinking of anyone except for himself. For example, Huck’s best friend Tom Sawyer starts a gang called the “Tom Sawyer Gang.” The gang was planning on commiting crimes such as theft and murder. The members did not want Huck to be a part of the gang simply because he did not have a family for anyone to kill. When they tell Huck he would not be
Civilization, and being “civilized” are topics that have been debated for centuries. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, Huck Finn journeys down the Mississippi River and witnesses many of society’s facets. During his adventures, Huck experiences the negative aspects of the human race and witnesses slavery, racism, and con-men. However, Huck himself is considered uncivilized to the point where the Widow Douglas can only attempt to “sivilize” Huck (13). The dichotomy between what was considered civilized at the time and what Huck believes is civilized represents the backwards, violent, and cruel nature of society as well as Huck’s progressiveness. Civilizationed, in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, involves violence, theft,
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 the beginning of the novel, Huck receives spelling lessons and continues to look for ways to improve his behavior. After meeting up with Tom Sawyer, he
Huckleberry Finn makes a lot of choices in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn some bad, some good, there are all kinds of decisions to make, but with each decision that Huck makes, leads him to different outcomes and consequences throughout his journey. Huck makes many choices throughout the book, like when he decided to escape from Pap’s cabin in chapter 6, because Pap’s beatings were getting too brutal for him to handle so he decides to saw a whole in the wall behind a big blanket, which he works on every time Pap leaves the cabin. After he gets the whole cut out, the next day he finds a canoe floating down the river, he takes the canoe and hides it and escapes when Pap leaves for the night to go drinking. Following his escape Huck takes all of the cabin’s supply’s and puts it all in the canoe and intelligently makes it look like he was murdered by cutting off some of his hair and killing a wild hog to use the blood to make it look believable.
Pap Finn is Huckleberry Finn’s drunken, slovenly father. The reader is first introduced to him in chapter five when Huck returns from giving Judge Thatcher his money. Pap knows that Huck is wealthy and being educated, but has no idea of what was just done prior to them meeting. Once Pap finds out about the money and Huck’s educations Pap gets angry and threatens to beat Huck for trying to be better than him.
Connections Between the Real World and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the Context of the Journey to Freedom.
Mark Twain’s idea of captivity is slavery and keeping Huckleberry Finn in the the standards of civilization. Slavery and racism is a major concept discussed throughout the novel using the character Jim. Jim is a slave that decides to run away so that he can free his family; the place he is running away from, the town which he is held captive, is keeping Jim captive. In Huckleberry Finn the author says,"Well, I b 'lieve you, Huck. I—I RUN OFF" (37). This quote is showing where Jim ran away from his masters home and town so that he can free himself and his family. The town is also keeping Huckleberry Finn “captive” to. Throughout the novel Twain talks about how Huckleberry Finn feels trapped in the town and how he wants to escape civilization and his father. “Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me.”(Twain 34). This quote shows how Huckleberry was treated by his father and that he felt trapped. Twain discusses slavery and the standards of civilization is very mature manner using symbolization
Mark Twain’s true intentions were similar to other abolitionists’ books printed during his era like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. These types of books exposed the horrors of slavery, which propelled the Northern United States and European society toward abolitionism. Twain’s position was uncommon for his era as he stood against slavery. In Twain’s novel, Huck, a child with a difficult upbringing that proved to be unstable because of his abusive father. So, when his father abandoned Huck, an older unmarried woman, Miss Watson, tried to provide a stable home for Huck. Miss Watson tried to force a civilized environment upon Huck that conflicted with his inner nature. These conflicts between how he was raised by his father and Miss Watson would cause Huck to become more independent, eventually leading him to run away from both. As he runs away, Huck crosses path with a
The historical novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain in 1884, has many literary elements to generate a good plot and compose a good story. Twain introduces the characters, the major ones being Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, as well as Jim. Finn was a white, poor child, who unlike Sawyer was not very dramatic in his way of life. Tom Sawyer read a lot and knew how to make any situation thrilling. Jim, a very mature black child, tags along with Finn (as well as the King and the Duke) to run away, and ultimately needs to get rescued in the end as he is forced into slavery by Ms. Watson. Twain provides a narrative hook by familiarizing the readers with how vivid Tom’s life is when he and Huck sneak through Widow
As a fiction writer, Mark Twain, whose original name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, stands apart as a comic genius. In America, Mark Twain had popularized this new genre through two of his well- known novels. One is 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ' and the other 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn '. Mark Twain 's idea of a boy character is based on the picture of an average American boy. The American boy, by nature, is enterprising and mischievous, not a reserved character like his counterpart in England. His counterpart is bolder and hence a more interesting character. Mark Twain 's portrayal of the twin boy characters - Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn is actually a portrayal of the American boys in general. This does not mean that American boys are not good or obedient.