One's Own Will, Huckleberry Finn's journey for freedom

Throughout the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Huck Finn), Huck Finn is constantly in search of freedom from society's unjust expectations of boys and whites as a whole. As shown throughout the book, society has expected all whites to think of black slaves as property, people without freedom or the ability to make decisions. Huck Finn faces a constant moral battle that takes place over the course of the book. One voice is siding with the common views of society, saying that Huck should treat Jim as a common slave as shown in this statement by Huck, " . . . he was most free . . . I could get that out of my conscience, no how nor way." The secondary voice is reminding Huck that there is a moral conflict in treating his friend as property. In the beginning, Huck plays with the slaves without really thinking about the issue of equality or the social status of slaves. His ideology of slaves at the beginning of the book is more in line with the primary voice that he has been predisposed to thinking. Huck's first recorded interaction with Jim was when Jim used his fortune-telling hairball to find out whether or not Huck's father was ba

ack in town. This is the first sign of Huck's slow conversion to the secondary voice's ideology. Huck's willingness to voluntarily ask for assistance from a slave's help was an obvious sign of Huck entering into the transitional stage in his mind about the issue. While this could be considered to be a minor step, the scene marks the time when Huck begins to open a new door in his mind to ideas other than the ones instilled by an unjust society. Mark Twain uses Huck Finn as a means of proving that all individuals need to be protected from society's undue influences.

The capture and sale of Jim by Dauphin towards the end of the book presents a final leap for Huck into secondary ideology. Huck is faced with the challenging moral dilemma of whether or not to turn Huck back into Miss Watson or to rescue him. His final decision is to rescue Jim, stating, "Well, I'll go to hell then!" This statement marks the turning point in Huck's opinion about Jim. His transition from the initial, predisposed ideology of society to the secondary ideology has been reached, because he is sacrificing the ultimate possession, which is his supposed admittance into heaven. Hu