Biblical Allusions In Huckleberry Finn Essay

Introduction With 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 in religion, and in need of being civilized 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 stumble upon a plethora of adventures along their way to find

In Joseph B. McCullough's Essay, Uses of the Bible in Huckleberry Finn, McCullough highlights such moments.1 In the beginning of Huckleberry's adventure he hides on Jackson Island, while his community is on the lookout for a supposed dead Huckleberry. Huckleberry claims he is peckish and, lo and behold, loaves of bread washes up on the shore; when one dies and their body is in the river their loved ones embed quicksilver in bread so it can float to their dead carcass. In this scene McCullough underlines that the bread is "unintended charity"(McCullough 2) because Huckleberry claims that "[he] reckon[s] the widow or the parson prayed that this bread would find him, and here it has gone and done it."(Twain 59) Huckleberry believes that prayer was the reason he receives this charity, while also emphasizing that only their prayers would work and not his because "[he] reckons it don't work for only just the right kind."(Twain 59) Huckleberry Acknowledges that religion does work, but only for the right people, and he's not one of them. In respect to religious values, he finds himself morally not 'the right kind' of person. In Addition, McCullough highlights how although Huckleberry "don't take no stock in dead people," he still indirectly assumes the role of Moses, a biblical figure:

... he nevertheless assumes the role of Moses as he attempts to deliver Jim from

Twain illustrates Such a scenario when Huckleberry struggles with keeping Jim from Miss Watson, after he says he would steal his family back from their slave owners. Huckleberry's conscience says to him "what had poor Miss Watson done to [him], that [he] could see her nigger go off right under [his] eyes and never say one single word?"(Twain 138) Huckleberry begins to regret not turning Jim in because he believes that he steals from a woman that did nothing wrong and that Jim's family belongs to a man who did not do him harm and work be harmed by Jim's actions that he would of wrongfully facilitated. This makes his conscience "[stir] up hotter than ever"(Twain 139) because in reflection to morals taught to him in the "book", the bible, by Miss Watson, it is a sin and wrongful to hurt another and steal.In Michael Lackey essay, Beyond Good and Evil: Huckleberry Finn on Human Intimacy, Lackey states that "For there to be an objective moral value, there must first be a God who spoke it into being."(Lackey 493) From this statement one can suggest that Huckleberry's morals were spoken into fruition by God, thus why he claim it is wrong to loot and maltreat others, which is against the bible, yet with prejudice, based on his own feeling, he ultimately does not betray Jim. Although Huckleberry