As we are first introduced to Huckleberry Finn, we see truly how he is still young. He is continuously teaming up with his best friend Tom Sawyer pulling pranks on Jim and engaging in imaginary gangs. Huck's reason for joining Tom, in other words, is that he is lonely and frightened, that he wants distraction, companionship, friendship-ultimately of course, love (Bell 51). In these childish games the immature children would pretend to "stop stagecoaches and carriages on the road, with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money." Tom and the gang of course, are completely unrealistic about the crimes they propose to commit, and blissfully unaware that crime, as gil

Another experience that aids in the maturity of Huck is his stay at the Grangerfords. It is here that Huck truly gets the taste of a normal family environment that he has been deprived of, but he later discovers and observes something that he will remember for the rest of his life. Huck's stay with Grangerfords is short-lived though, but it helps to further his moral growth as a person. The Grangerfords are involved in a bloody family feud with the Sheperdsons, so bloody and long-standing a feud that it rivals that of the Hatfields and McCoys. It is as deeply horrifying to Huck as it could possibly be to Clemens (Adams 46). This feud comes as a horrible shock to the young Finn. And it is through this feud that Huck comes to the realization of just how bad hatred and war could really be. This was amplified when the Grangerford member he had come to know well and admire, Buck, was killed in the feud. This brutal killing of the two boys makes Huck so sick that he cannot even tell about it in detail without getting sick again; and his admiration for the better qualities of the aristocrats is more than canceled by the result of their violence (Adams 46). Death and destruction can have a profound effect on any man, much less a young boy. This experience rattles the young Finn to the core of his morality and helps to shape and mold his maturity from a boy to a man. It is from this kind of violence that Huck escapes to the river again, wishing that he "hadn't ever come ashore that night to see such things. I ain't ever going to get shut out of them--lot's of times I dream about them (Adams 47)." Huck's experience with the Grangerfords certainly taught him a great deal about strong emotions, which in turn helped him to mature.

The climax of Huck's maturity is that of when the group of raftsmen hears of the state of affairs of the deceased Mr. Wilkes from a man that they come upon down the river. They discover that the late Mr. Wilkes has willed his money to not only his relatives in America, but also to his two brothers whom he has not seen for some time, an Englishmen and a deaf and dumb mute. The Duke and Dauphin take on the identities of Mr. Wilkes' brothers and set out to con his daughters of their small fortune. The two imposters are so greedy and distrustful of one another that they hide the money. It is a game that Huck perfectly understands, and he becomes so much ashamed of himself for being involved in it, though unwillingly, that he takes the risky measure of telling the truth in order to break it up (Adams 49). Huck realizes that this is such an awful crime and so morally wrong that he steals the money and places it in Mr. Wilkes' coffin. From his complicity in the effort to defraud the Wilkes girls, from his similar complicity in Tom's cruel game of "freeing" Jim, and especially from his own earlier discovery of his ability to care for Jim, Huck would appear to learn something about love and kindness (Bell 49). Huck grows so much e

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1996
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)