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Huckleberry Finn Community Analysis

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Twain uses Huck’s concerns about his community to show that the community makes people feel like they’re one of them if they don’t go along with slavery. In the book ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ Huck describes that if he were to give Jim up to Miss Watson that she would be mad and disgusted that Jim left her presence in the first place. This explains that the community thinks that slavery is the best thing, and that if an African American leaves his “master” that they are ungrateful of what they have. Huck Finn talks about how if he were to go back to Miss Watson with Jim that he would be judged for helping an African American. This explains that the community treats someone who helps an African American as if they’re one of them. The community is so …show more content…

As Huck talks about Sunday school he talks about how when someone helps a slave that they go to ‘everlasting fire’. This explains how religion is forcing slavery on not just adults, but to kids as well. Religion is threatening kids, if you help a slave you’re going to hell. Huck is confused about religion because he sees the good in Jim, and can’t quite understand why he is being dehumanized. Huck tries to pray about give Jim up but can’t because he knows that you can’t cheat a pray and lie. This explains that for people who help slaves back then were probably scared of going to hell because they saw well in a slave. Huck ends up writing a letter to Miss Watson about where Huck and Jim had been, as he wrote his letter he felt as if he could finally pray, but then again couldn’t. Huck stated that he rather go to hell than give up Jim and pray for forgiveness. This explains that people who helped slaves didn’t always care about the religion and the rules of the bible so they do what Huck does and proceeds what they’re doing and takes the consequences of going to

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Huck has always seen Jim as a slave until they crossed paths while going down the river. The two develop a friendship and Huck starts to care about Jim and his well being. Although Huck views Jim as someone he cares about, he still sees him as a slave as well. “ I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write that nigger’s owner and tell where he was,” ( Document E). Huck is in a continuous battle with his inner self when it comes to his views on Jim.

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This is the climax of the novel, in which many of the underlying themes are made clear. Huck’s morals overcome his fear for punishment, and he is determined to help Jim even if he has to go to hell for it. Furthermore, Jim is a runaway slave, and in the context of the story, helping a runaway slave, albeit one that was sold and has a new owner, would be almost traitorous to Huck’s community. Another revelation is that Huck has transcended the racial constructs of the time, recognizing Jim’s humanity and considering him someone worth rescuing at great personal risk. In this scene, Huck finally breaks the restraints of society, and indeed, his environment, by ignoring all societal and theological constructs and instead choosing what is right by his conscience.

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Huck had a plight while on the run with the runaway slave, Jim. Harvesting and helping a runaway slave was a crime, but Huck just could not let Jim go. Huck cared immensely for Jim as any friend would. That much was a risk worth taking to Huck. In document E, Huck says, “‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’ -and tore it up.”

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Huck does not see Jim as a slave anymore he sees Jim as a friend and he treats him like a friend. Huck would of never done this at the begning of his journey or when he found out Jim is a runaway. He evolved his morality, Twain finished the book after the civil war he did not believe in slavery it

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639 Words | 3 Pages

So, when Huck picks up Jim, a recently escaped slave, and heads up the Mississippi River, he gets nervous when Jim begins to talk about how he will soon be free and plans to buy, or even steal, his wife and children. This was during a time where Huck would be committing a crime by helping a slave escape. He has a difficult time deciding to be loyal to his friend and let Jim continue up the rest of the way up north so that he can be freed, or to turn Jim in as an escaped slave. Huck fears getting in trouble, but he also is very torn because of the relationship that he now has with Jim. Huck’s askew sense of sympathy and morality are conflicting each other.

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1266 Words | 6 Pages

Huck decides to act on his morals rather than be held captive by society; Huck believes that he has to act in the best interest of Jim and does not consider what society believes is acceptable behavior. By stating that he will “go to hell,” Huck reiterates what he promises Jim in the beginning- that he rather be a “low down abolitionist”; these statements combined supports his feelings to protect Jim from society. When Huck and Tom get back to the house, Huck states, “...it don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no

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884 Words | 4 Pages

It may be difficult for me to understand the true feelings of the author but I can find meaning in Huck’s attitude. At the beginning of their journey along the Mississippi River, Huck shows that he views Jim as inferior and less than human when he says “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? Why, me” (74). Huck’s conscience leads him to believe that Jim is in the wrong for escaping slavery, despite the fact that Huck essentially did the same thing when he escaped in search of his own freedom. Later on in the story, Huck appears to be changing.

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1380 Words | 6 Pages

He thinks, “Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself, by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I waren’t so much to blame, but something inside of me kept saying, ‘There was the Sunday School, you could a gone to it; and if you’d a done it they’d a learnt you, there, that people that acts as I’d been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire’” (Twain 222). Michael J. Hoffman notes that Huck realizes that if he went to church, he would have had the social code ingrained in him. As a result, he would not have had to make hard moral choices (turning in Jim).

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364 Words | 2 Pages

to demonstrate how societies standards and moral beliefs are not always accurate. Another incident Huck faces is when he believes it is right for Jim to return home and continue to be a slave. He composes a letter to Ms. Watson but begins to reflect on the friendship he developed with Jim and says, “ ‘ All right, then, I’ll go to hell’- and tore it up.” (Twain, pg.250) Huck decides to not advice Ms. Watson about her runaway slave because he realizes that Jim is a sympathetic man, who was always by his side and cares for him. He would rather go against society’s hypocritical norms on the “right” way of functioning and chooses to go by his own standards.

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466 Words | 2 Pages

This transition is the result of the extended period of time that the two spend together, which allows Huck to look past the differences that he has been taught to observe for his entire life and view Jim for what he is; a fellow man. By the end of this passage, Huck’s resolve to do right by Jim is so strong that he is willing to suffer eternal damnation rather than betray Jim. Perhaps Huck’s most important statement in this passage is “Alright then, I’ll go to hell”; here he decides he’s willing to go to hell for eternity rather than causing Jim to return to his life as a slave. At first Huck just thought of Jim the property of another person, a good to be bought and sold regardless of any evidence that he was a human being. As they travel together, this viewpoint is gradually weakened by examples of Jim’s humanity, culminating in a model shift that goes against everything Huck has been taught about the societal status of a

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434 Words | 2 Pages

This quote shows how Huck views Jim, seeing Jim now as a person who can feel. From Huck's understanding Jim was a slave and being a slave meant that Jim couldn't have feelings, although not treating Jim like a slave. Huck finds out that even though Jim was a slave, he feels the same for his people as white people feel for each

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206 Words | 1 Pages

In summary, the controversial issue of racial equality and racism, in effect, makes Huck’s relationship with slaves (like Jim) slowly grow stronger throughout the novel. Moreover, racial equality and racism also affect the way Huck chooses to reject the societal norms of the late nineteenth century in order to bring two races together. In addition, everyone should understand the importance of racial equality and racism because of the stain they have left on American history and society as well as the affect these controversial issues have on people today. That’s why people in the twenty-first century should discuss racial equality and racism, in order to prevent any future occurrences of one race enslaving another race. To continue, While some

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1202 Words | 5 Pages

Huck thinks about Miss Watson and how he is betraying her by helping Jim escape. Huck encounters slave catchers and he is internally whether to tell about Jim but decides not to and says, “They went and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don’t get started right when he’s little ain’t got no show -- when the pinch comes there ain’t nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat” (Twain 102). Then later in the novel Jim is sold by some con men for $40 which upsets Huck and causes him to realize he cares about Jim and says, “All right, then I’ll GO to hell” (Twain 225). Huck is defying society’s laws by deciding to help captured Jim. Huck is maturing significantly because his perception of Jim has changed.

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1200 Words | 5 Pages

Another indication of Twain’s opinion on slavery is Huck’s ever-progressive view of Jim. At the start of the novel, Huck shares the same ignorant views with the rest of society, playing pranks on him because he was considered property, not a person, and commenting on how “Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches” (7). Throughout the course of the novel, Huck and Jim’s bond strengthens and Huck begins to see Jim as a person. Jim teaches Huck to be more accepting and open minded by treating him like an equal, and loving and forgiving him, despite thoughtless pranks, ultimately molding Huck’s outlook in his favor. In chapter 15, Jim appeals to Huck’s conscience, using ethos and pathos, to encourage Huck to be kinder and more thoughtful (89).

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449 Words | 2 Pages

The southern society ingrained into Huck’s mind that if you save a slave from slavery you are a criminal. Huck is not immediately worried about how Jim would be treated if he escaped, Huck is worried about how he would be affected. He is worried that by breaking an unsaid rule of the south he would become more of an outcast than he already is. However, Huck decides that Jim has been too nice to have him suffer slavery any longer. Huck decides that he’ll “go to hell”, because saving a slave meant going to hell in that society (Twain 271).

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