Moral Values In Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

Introduction In a society built upon corruption, hypocrisy, and violence, how would one develop a moral sense to dictate what is, in actuality, right or wrong, contrary to that society's moral values? In Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain introduces the protagonist Huckleberry Finn as a young southern boy who has a deadbeat-drunk of a father, no interest for religion, and in need of being 'sivilized' by his guardian Miss Watson. Huckleberry decides to escape from civilization and adventures out in a raft along the Mississippi river. Along the way Huckleberry finds a runaway slave named Jim, who belongs to Miss Watson and they agree to venture together and stumbleupon a plethora of adventures along there way to find

McCullough emphasizes the latter as more apparent when Huckleberry gets Jim bit by a rattlesnake. Jim askes Huckleberry to roast the rattlesnake and use it as an antidote for the venom. This parallels the when "Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole, and those who looked upon it were healed. The brass serpent in the Old Testament becomes the roasted rattlesnake in Twain's version."(McCullough 3) With the inclusion of these biblical parallels it can be said that the bible itself is a major structure of Huckleberry's adventure, which pushes him physically in a direction of biblical based adventures.

He draws a parallel between the morality of his character in relation to religion, in which his is not the 'right kind', and supports that right and wrong can be decided by religion and he does so to his own morality. Along with his morals being structured based on the bible, his narrative is itself a parody of biblical stories. Thus he begins creating a moral compass essentially based on religious views of what is right and wrong, virtue and sin, guiding him though a real life imitation of bible