Rejecting civilization
In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck is a young boy just trying to figure out who he wants to be. Huck’s constant rejection of civilization from Miss Watson and the constant beatings from pap leads him to run away to a lonely island. Huck comes to find out that the island is not lonely anymore. Jim, Miss Watsons slave has ran away fearing that Miss Watson was going to sell him down the river. Since they have both ran away to the same location, they decide to go on the greatest adventure of their lives, setting a runaway slave free. Throughout the novel, Huck has a huge change of moral development. His outlook on everything changes once he see’s life in the eyes of a slave. Huck has never liked civilization, but he wants to learn and go to school because that is his way of getting back at pap. “I didn’t want to go to school much before, but I reconded I’d go now to spite pap” (p.25). Come to find out, Pap gets custody and takes Huck far away to a cabin in the woods. Neglecting the teaching of Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas, Huck starts up his bad habits again because pap did not care. “I had stopped cussing because the widow didn’t like it, but now I took to it again because pap hadn’t had no objections” (p.26).
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Since his father is continuously walking in and out of his life, Huck is always on the go to get away from him. He feels safer when pap is gone. “Pap hadn’t been seen for more than a year and that was comfortable for me” (p.12). Rejecting the Widow Douglas’s ways of life, then rejecting the ways of pap, leads Huck to want to live on his own. He just wants to be free from civilization and safe from pap, and the river gave him peace. “I stood out on the bank and looked out over the river, all safe”