The belief systems of their guardians always affect the influential minds of children, and in Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” the beliefs of Widow Douglas and escaped slave Jim drastically change Huck’s morals and opinions of the world around him. Widow Douglas attempts, throughout the first part of the book, to help Huck become mannerful and educated, especially in the Christianity. Her obsession with this drives Huck away more than draw him in, like when he says, “After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because …show more content…
The most important message that the Widow instills in Huck is when she tells him, “ ...the thing a body could get by praying for it was "spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me what she meant—I must help other people, and …show more content…
Jim’s faith in superstitions intrigues Huck and through this, he shapes his perspective of the world. For example, when Twain writes, “ Jim knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most everything. I said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I asked him if there warn't any good-luck signs. He says: ‘Mighty few—an' dey ain't no use to a body. What you want to know when good luck's a-comin' for? Want to keep it off?’” he illustrates Huck’s interest in this piece of wisdom and he no longer worries about what events might come his way and instead allows fate to play itself out. When Huck puts a snake in Jim’s bed to scare him but ends up getting him bitten, Jim’s superstitions are what pressure Huck to drop his pranking habit. Since Jim becomes so bothered by it and blames the unfortunate events that follow on Huck touching the snake skin, the boy is anxious and off-put to the point where he decides to stop pranking people. Later, Jim’s influence is what prevents Huck from betraying Jim and turning him into authorities. Huck has a moral crisis when he thinks, “Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he WAS most free—and who was to blame for it?” and because of the effect Jim has on his and the lessons he’s taught, Huck realizes that helping him