The Search for Morality
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the opinion is expressed that society is deaf and blind to morality. Mark Twain exposes a civilization filled with hate and hypocrisy, ignorance and injustice, all through the eyes of an impressionable youth known as Huckleberry Finn. Through his adventures Huck discovers his own conscience, and capacity for loyalty and friendship. He plays a dangerous game filled with life-altering decisions that determine who he is as a person in the world. The game Huck plays occasionally gets him into a rare moral dilemma. He has to choose between violating the entire code of social, religious, and conventional behavior, which the world has taught him, and betraying the person whom he loves most in his life. Huck's ailing conscience prompts him to write a letter, advising Miss Watson that her slave, Jim, is in Mr. Phelp's possession. After writing the letter he says, "I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off but laid the paper down and set there thinking-thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell" (Twain).
The Atlanta Constitution. Rev. of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. May 1885: 26 Perry, T. S. Rev. of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Most amusing is the struggle Huck has with his conscience in regard to slavery. His conscience tells him, the way it has been instructed, that to help the runaway slave, Jim, to escape is an enormous offense. Not to mention that Jim belonged to Miss Watson, who had always treated both he and Huck very well. Huck feels that aiding in stealing Miss Watson's property will no doubt carry him to the bad place. Huck's deep affection for Jim ultimately induces him to violate his conscience and risk eternal punishment by helping his friend, and slave, Jim to escape. "The whole study of Huck's moral nature is as serious as it is amusing, his confusion of wrong as right and his abnormal mendacity, traceable to his training from infancy, is a singular contribution to the investigation of human nature" (Hartford). Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Twain writes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the best way that a story is written, by telling
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Approximate Word count = 809
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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