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Why Is Huck Finn Selfish

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In the beginning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is living with Miss Watson in civilization, where he is forced to go to school, use manners, wear starched clothing, and is pressed upon by religion. His father, Pap, then comes to town and kidnaps Huck, and takes him away to live in a cabin in the woods after learning that he cannot claim Huck’s six thousand dollars. In the cabin in the woods, Huck enjoys being away from society, but despises how his father treats him, and his solidarity. Huck then decides that religion is pointless, and he won’t try for eternal salvation when he says,“She [Miss Watson] was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. …show more content…

Huckleberry Finn is an opportunist, and does not do anything that will not aid him in some way, shape, or form. He also rejects society by rejecting religion, which is a fundamental part of the society to which he belongs. Huck further rejects society when he says, “It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it all around. But by and by pap got too handy with his hick’ry, and I couldn’t stand it.”(24). Through this quote, Huck shows his love of nature and the freedom it entails. As Huck becomes less dependent on, and drifts away from society, his opinions and beliefs begin to align with his core beliefs and

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Critics and readers generally agree on the importance of nature in the adventures of huckleberry finn, where it juxtapose against the civilization. The book itself represents mankind’s return to nature, seeking refuge from the suffocating bounds of societal standards: “Huck Finn, like other Adamic heroes in the canonical literature, flees the restrictions imposed by home and family in order to seek freedom on the great river”( Wright). Wright compares the character of Huck Finn to Biblical Adamic heros; heros carrying the torch of “individualism” and on a odyssey seeking to escape the oppression and reveal the injustice civilization imposes on the individual. Therefore, Wright reveals, in civilization’s attempt to civilize its constituent,

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664 Words | 3 Pages

Huckleberry Finn teaches that friendship is more important then society. Huck is constantly chosing Jim over America's expectations because Jim was his best friend. Jim teaches that family is above all. Huck tells the reader that Jim had said "he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children" (Twain 88). That quote shows that Jim would do absolutely anything to get his family back.

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642 Words | 3 Pages

Huck does not conform to the ways of the people he is around. If he is around someone who believes something and they try to get him to believe in it to he will not believe in it unless he sees that it is right. For example, when Mrs. Watson was teaching Huck about religion and God Huck did not want to believe it because Mrs. Watson believed in it and he

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369 Words | 2 Pages

It’s hard for close-minded people to change their opinions, and the same goes for Huck Finn. He recalls Miss Watson telling him to do everything he can to be selfless and help other people. Nonetheless, her words passed through his mind for he could not see how it would benefit him (Twain 17). Although he still has trouble combatting society’s flawed views, Huck goes

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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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1171 Words | 5 Pages

Later in the book, Huck tries to adjust to the lack of rules he had to follow when living with his father. Huckleberry Finn states, “... and it warn’t long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it, all but the cowhide part. It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn’t see how I’d ever got to like it so well at the widow’s, where you had to wash, and eat on a

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738 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the rest of Huck 's journey he continues to meet people along the way that believe themselves to be good civilized people but they all contradict that in some way. The Grangerford 's are in a murdering feud with another family, the Phelps own slaves and are trying to get a reward for Jim, the townspeople that feather and tar the Duke and King without a trial, the execution of Boggs, even the Widow tells Huck not to smoke but takes snuff herself. Huck spends a large amount of time in the book pondering over how to be good and do the right things, and at the end of the book when he decides to go West and leave it all behind he has finally realized that he 's not the one that 's bad, society is. Huck heads back out into the world not for more adventure, but to get away from

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605 Words | 3 Pages

In Huckleberry Finn, we see how Huck learns not from following the ways of society, but by seeing the flaws and learning from them. Huck gains his morals on his adventures with Jim. Throughout the book we learn that he would not have gained the same morals if he had stayed a part of society. His morals are ones that everybody should have but because of the time period, racism and sexism were seen as normal.

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1955 Words | 8 Pages

Upon coming to this independent realization he strays away from how society expected him to act, which he now believes is not rational or morally just. Using this shift in opinion, Twain explains how in the world Huck lives in beliefs are thrust upon everyone to create a society assimilated in thought, but how these values also cannot be universal. Society forced Huck to think and act in a way that after allowed escape and time to think for himself, was not what he discovers to be

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1822 Words | 8 Pages

As this change in Huck begins to happen, Huck struggles with deciding whether to help Jim, going against what he has been taught, or to turn him in, doing what Huck believes, is the right thing. Huck feels compassion for Jim, but he thinks that helping him is directly defying God. “it [Huckleberry Finn] is an image of the conflict between social and personal virtues, between, on the one hand, people 's associations as social concepts and social products and, on the other, their associations simply as human beings”(Ostrom, 164). Huck grapples with his personal feelings, and what society has taught him. Jim is seen by most as simply a slave who is inferior.

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884 Words | 4 Pages

Mark Twain emphasizes the theme that a person's morals are more powerful than the corrupt influence of society in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Based on how Huck Finn views the world and forms his opinions, he does not know the difference between right and wrong. In the novel, Huck escapes civilized society. He encounters a runaway slave, Jim, and together they travel hopes of freedom. But along the way, Huck and Jim come across troubles that have Huck questioning his motives.

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810 Words | 4 Pages

Specifically, Huck cannot understand that he is a good person because he lacks a civil upbringing. When Tom, a boy with a religious and typical childhood, decides that he will help Huck steal Jim out of slavery, Huck cannot understand how Tom, who has had a civil upbringing, chooses to act immorally by helping save Jim. Huck’s confusion lies in the idea that goodness is determined by a person’s upbringing and that because Tom has had a conventional upbringing, Tom must be a pure person. Through this reasoning, Huck is blinded to his own morality because his childhood is empty of convention and religion. Huck even discusses that had he gone to Sunday school he would have “learnt you there that people that acts as I’d been acting…goes to everlasting fire,” furthermore supporting that Huck believes himself to be immoral because he never received conventional, spiritual teaching (215).

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435 Words | 2 Pages

Huck aspires to be free: He wants to wear comfortable clothes, go fishing and swimming and walk barefoot on the grass of the forest. That is why he behaves rebelliously and, eventually, runs away from home.

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539 Words | 3 Pages

Huck, a social outcast, lives a life on the margins of society, free from the constraints of civilization. Twain contrasts Tom's constrained existence within the town's social norms with Huck's freedom and individuality. Huck's character represents the allure of escaping societal expectations and embracing a life of adventure, even at the cost of societal acceptance. Through this friendship, Twain prompts readers to question the confines of societal expectations and the importance of personal

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1083 Words | 5 Pages

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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