Huckleberry Finn Religion Vs Superstition Essay

Religion .vs. Superstition In the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain uses the characters to project various themes. For example, the character Jim expresses the ideas of race and morals, and Tom Sawyer embodies youth and responsibility. He does not just write characters; he writes messengers of more complicated concepts and ideas from the time period. The protagonist Huckleberry Finn demonstrates the differences between faith in religion or faith in superstition, and relates these ideas to the contrast between freedom and civilization. Huck often chooses to trust superstition above religion because it has been more reliable for him in the past. In situations where adults or his role models have advised him to have faith in religion,

There is nobody that has authority over Huck’s beliefs or actions other than his own conscience and morals when he is traveling with Jim. Superstition acts as a self-serving belief for Huck because he can make it conform to whatever his opinions are. Religion does not approve of Huck supporting and aiding Jim in being a runaway slave, but there is nothing in his use of superstition as a system of beliefs that can tell him that this is wrong. His morals lead him to help Jim, and he has the freedom and the power to make this decision for himself without the burden of religion or society looking down on him. Both of these things act as a buffer between Huck and doing what he believes to be moral since they have conditioned him to think a certain way. Freedom and superstition synchronize in this same way because they allow Huck to have the flexibility to stick to his ideals while continuing to offer him a backbone of beliefs on which to build his morals. Superstition can dictate what is good or bad in many cases that Huck faces on the river because it coincides so closely with the ideas of freedom in the way that superstition allows any person to chalk anything up to good or bad luck without any input from