Throughout Huck’s adventures, he is put in numerous situations where he must depend on himself, and use his own judgment to make fundamental decisions that will later have an affect on his life. Growing up, Huck has always been considered an outcast amongst all his peers and in society as a whole. Consistently throughout the book, all the people he is forced to live with try to change him. Prior to the start of the novel, Miss Watson and Widow Douglas have been granted legal custody of Huck, who views him as an uncivilized boy who possesses no morals. Huck explains in the opening chapter, “The Widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me”(Twain 1).
Every person Huck encounters tries to change him so that he fits
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Huck quickly realizes he has no place in society, when Tom and him decide to start a gang. However, in order to become a member, one must consent to the murdering of their families if one breaks the rules. When one of the boys call out, “Here’s Huck Finn, he hain’t got no family, what you going to do ‘bout him?” Huck starts to realize that he has never had caring and loving parents that he would have to feel obligated not to kill (Twain 6). His father, who is known as the town’s drunk, has physically and mentally abused Huck all his life, which has given him no sense of direction. Huck describes the abusive and cruel relationship he has with Pap when he says, “He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around”(Twain 9). The fact that Huck had to run “to the woods most of the time when he was around,” shows the kind of unsafe environment a young boy should not be raised in. Once Huck realizes that his own father may be a threat to his life, he deviously fakes his own death and begins his new adventures, setting sail on a raft with the company of a runaway slave named