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Huckleberry Finn Morality Essay

816 Words4 Pages

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain explores the concept of human morality through the characterization of a young child. Huckleberry Finn, as a young boy, faces difficult challenges of life and his trip through the Mississippi river is a representation and a realistic reflection of a divided nation during the time period in the country. In addition, the trip through the Mississippi river is an ultimate test of morality through the situations Huck Finn endures. The character of Huck Finn demonstrates to readers that despite the influence of society, people at the end of the day, fight internally with their conscience to make the right choice when certain situations appear to test the free will of a person, even if it means crossing …show more content…

Several occurrences happen during the course of the novel that demonstrate to Huck that society’s morality is hypocritical, unjust and molded to fit their own agendas when it is convenient for them. Huck Finn’s engagement with the king and duke is a clear display of society’s double standard of morality, “if they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn’t no objections, long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn’t no use to tell Jim, so I didn’t tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way,” (Twain 142). The king and the duke claim to be people of honor and dignity when in fact they are nothing other than crooks and lairs of the lowest rank. If Huck contains doubt about the rules and the structure of society, occurrences such as these only solidify his desire to be guided by his own self morality rather than following regular social norms that people like the widow and Miss Watson try to impose on him when trying to civilize Huck. When the king and the duke come to their end, Huck states, “human beings can be awful cruel to one another,” (Twain 239). The statement takes a tone of final acceptance that humans ability to care for one another and morality will never

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