Huckleberry Finn Character Development

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn One of the greatest challenges of growing up is learning how to think for yourself and form your own identity. Society plays a great role in attempting to form you in the image of their beliefs and ways of thinking, Straying from that image or embracing it will forever be one of the greatest challenges children and young adults face in their development. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck over time develops and gains his own understandings of the natures of society in issues such as slavery and hypocrisy. Huck is immature and undeveloped, stuck in the ways that he was brought up and more easily influenced by others. You see how Huck’s behavior is heavily influenced in the beginning,

Huck demonstrates that he has a good moral core when he worries about leaving the robbers alone to die on the abandoned ship. “I begun to think how dreadful it was even for murderers to be in such a fix… There ain’t no telling but I might become a murder myself ,yet, then how would I like it? (Twain 72). This presents the idea that Huck has consideration for others and does not judge, as he put himself in someone else's shoes. This is contrary to Miss Watson who told Huck Tom would not make it into heaven by a considerable doubt, which shows her judgement on his bad character. Huck’s actions and reactions to this situation demonstrate that he has a good moral core and at the end of the day just wants to do what is right. Huck has an epiphany when he realizes that his lie about the fog greatly affected Jim, and humbles himself to apologize even if he is a “nigger” realizing the wrongs of his ways. “I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole jim wid a lie. Dat truck dat is trash” (Twain 94). This is an immense moment of growth for Huck when he tries to player a trick on Jim after their separation in the fog. This is when he realizes his actions truly take affect on others, and that lying only get people hurt in the end. Huck has a moment of humbling himself and realizing even though Jim is a different color he messed up and that he deserves an apology as much as anyone else. You see his break away from the thoughts and acceptance about slavery society attempts to embed in everyone. Laurel Bollinger in her article “Say it Jim” states,“ If in teaching the novel we want to present Huck as a moral exemplar, then we want to see him go beyond the dominant moral language, to make the "right" decisions for the "right" reasons, to recognize the wrongness of the