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Huckleberry Finn Moral Development Essay

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Mark Twain’s piece on Huckleberry Finn is a masterpiece of irony painted on the backdrop of the dark days of slavery. The setting is in a time when America is easing out of the active practice of slavery, in St. Petersburg Missouri. Living On the banks of a river in Missouri and having a mischievous friend Tom, Huckleberry a boy in his thirteens, is presented with numerous opportunities for involvement in scandals. From a troubled childhood an affinity for trouble and guts for adventure Huck is put in a moral dilemma more than once as he tries to help an escapee slave to escape to the Free states. After failing spectacularly they land in a series of adventures that return Jim to slavery; sorry for this Huck and tom attempt to rescue him and fail miserably. Hucks aunt comes to rescue them and offers to adopt Huck but he has other plans. In this essay I will examine the moral development exhibited by Huck's character along the lines of race and identity. In the book Hucks reasoning on morality differs from the conventional definition of the southern lands. Huck is initially not very open about his …show more content…

They are suddenly confronted by the fact that their attitude towards stealing is all wrong. Huck is in a particularly tight spot in the wage of these events since in his time slaves are their masters’ property. He is thrown into turmoil, considering if he should go against his promise to Jim. They get separated, Jim misses hi route to freedom and when they re-unite, Jim rebukes Hucks intention in a well crafted speech (105). He refers to Huck as “…white trash.” As Huck deliberates on these words he realizes his moral stand is against racism and apologizes to his friend. “I done it and warn’t sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks and I wouldn’t done that if I’d a known it would make him feel that

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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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When one reads The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, themes involving morality and conscience become heavily prevalent. The protagonist, Huckleberry Finn, portrays a manifest dynamic character. His actions and statements ranging from the outset of the novel through its ending show Huck’s development of a more concise sense of morality and conscience prevailing over the societal influences of “right and wrong”. In the nineteenth century American South, the inescapable system of slavery and social hierarchy would have discouraged an interracial bond. Yet Huck, while escaping his abusive father, chooses to befriend Jim, the runaway slave whom he encounters, and shares a pivotal stage in his life with his newfound companion, whereby contradicting

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A social bandit is someone who is tired of law enforcements not taking action when the people are being oppressed, and decides to take matter into his own hands. Joaquin Murieta was called the Mexican Robin Hood by the people and a desperado by those who opposed him. Like many in the mid 1800s, Murieta traveled to California in search of wealth in the mines. After some mishaps, oppression and running into trouble with neighboring Anglos, Murieta later rebelled and turned to a life of crime. But he only committed crimes against those oppressed him and his people.

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Society has engraved in Huck that helping a colored person is an awful sin, however Huck thinks of Jim as a friend, and would be feel terrible if he turned Jim in. Huck begins to get overwhelmed on whether to betray Jim, and must choose whether to follow the restrictions of society or to follow his own heart. Huck finally deals with his struggles, and chooses what he feels is the moral thing to do. First, to escape society’s standards, Huck runs to nature. The peacefulness of nature is what Huck wanted the entire time, he finally has freedom, comfort, and most importantly, his free will.

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After pranks Jim by putting the snake in his blanket, Huck realizes what he did was wrong and sees Jim’s reaction to his prank, and “It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back. It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a n*****; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more

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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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When Huck and Jim are thrown from the raft they get separated and Huck gets caught in the middle Jim decides to search for Huck and find him, instead of leaving him behind. This advances Huck’s views because he realizes that even though Jim’s skin color is different he still cares and is willing to do what is right. This influences future decisions that Huck makes revolving around slavery. In chapter sixteen he decides to lie to the slave hunters by saying he was traveling with a white man “ I didn't answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn't come.

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The world in which he grows up forces him to believe that positive characteristics such as loyalty and a “level head” are “uncommon… for a nigger” (Twain 4) like Jim. This influence is not what Huck believes when he becomes independent from these pressures. On his adventures with Jim, he begins to see the slave and his race as equals. It took Huck “fifteen minutes before [he] could humble [himself] to a nigger” because of what he was taught about his superiority to the black man, but “[he] done it and [he] wasn’t even sorry for it afterwards” (x). His understanding that he should not feel sorry for apologizing to a slave leads him to believe that black men and white men are equal.

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Huckleberry Finn is a story about a rambunctious young boy who adventures off down the Mississippi River. “The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain demonstrates a situation where a Huck tries to find the balance between what is right and what is wrong. Huck faces many challenges in which his maturity will play a part in making the correct decision for himself and his friend Jim. Huck becomes more mature by the end of the novel by showing that he can make the correct decisions to lead Jim to the freedom he deserves. One major factor where Huck matures throughout the novel is through his experience.

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Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a perfect example of this genre as it follows Huck’s abandonment of standard 1800s treatment of people of color while trying to free his friend, Jim, from slavery. Throughout the novel, Huck Finn, Twain uses Huck's relationship with Jim as a catalyst for Huck’s moral development as he rejects the societal norms of his upbringing. To begin, Twain demonstrates Jim’s effect on Huck’s maturity by allowing Huck to empathize with Jim’s emotions.

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Mark Twain’s crowning achievement The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been, and continues to be the main focus of critics for years. Despite many censures that the book has experienced since its first publication, mostly because of the excessive use of abusive language, the novel managed to withstand the test of time and become a classic of American literature. Part of the book’s realism and its peculiarity is the vernacular language, and albeit it is a children’s book and involves an abundance of humor, it raises many serious issues, racism, slavery, violence, just to name a few. Moreover, the child narrator provides the novel a humane voice against inhumane practices of the antebellum Southern society. Being a Southerner himself, Twain

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Mark Twain introduces the character Huckleberry Finn as a wayward adolescence lacking both direction and a strong moral compass in the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain continues to develop the protagonist throughout the novel with the help of the supporting character Jim until Huck is transformed into a compassionate character with a newly discovered sense of morality and independence, with the capability to make his own decisions based off what he believes to be morally just. This discovery of morality and direction is made apparent to the reader with the multiple obstacles he overcomes on his journey down the Mississippi River. Huck’s low code of ethics is brought to the reader’s attention early in the novel while he is still under the care of Widow Douglas. Huck, Tom Sawyer, and the other boys from town decide to form a gang, in order to join, however, each boy must agree to murder their family in the case of breaking a rule of the gang.

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In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the reader gauges morality through the misadventures of Huck and Jim. Notably, Huck morally matures as his perspective on society evolves into a spectrum of right and wrong. Though he is still a child, his growth yields the previous notions of immaturity and innocence. Likewise, Mark Twain emphasizes compelling matters and issues in society, such as religion, racism, and greed. During the span of Huck’s journey, he evolves morally and ethically through his critique of societal normalities.

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