FREE ESSAY ON HUCK FINN

HUCK FINN

Struggle Between Heart and Conscience
When Robert Frost writes of two roads diverged in a wood, and I-/ I took the one less
traveled by/And that has made all the difference (The Road Not Taken), he demonstrates
the realization of both writers and the hoi-polloi that following the accepted path of
society not always directs an individual in the proper direction. While few people would
disagree with the principle, most do not concede to the action. Since such moral
conflicts continuously plague the lives of common people, writers commonly portray such
simple problems in their novels. But just as not all moral decisions allow for an obvious
solution, not all writers choose to portray such one-dimensional conflicts. Often a
person's intuition conflicts with pervading conventions in solving an obscure problem, as
demonstrated by the Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The main character
of the novel, the youthful Huckleberry Finn, uses his intuition throughout the novel to
guide him in the correct path. Employing various episodes involving not only the runaway
slave Jim but also other characters, Twain efectively conveys to the reader a complex
moral problem that the young Huck must face in the nineteenth century slave-holding
society. Even Huck, with a limited education and sparse worldly knowledge, finds himself
bursting to escape from the shackles of society's brainwashing in order to follow his
heart. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain examines the struggle between
Huck's corrupt societal conscience and his moral heart to criticize society's seeming
morality.
In order to impart on the reader the true moral standing which he wishes him to uphold
through the rest of the book, Twain extrapolates on the subject of slavery in the
nineteenth century in the first few chapters of the novel. Up to Huck and Jim's
confrontation in the woods, Twain only allows Huck to view Jim as a ridiculously ignorant
slave who converses with hairballs and boasts of being kidnapped by witches (16-26). But
when the culture of the time period is researched, one encounters such plethora of
evidence of these magical practices that Jim's behavior becomes valid. In an essay
entitled Conjure, 
Because of the onslaught of brainwasing by the slaveholding community, Huck accomplishes
a formidable feat when he reject's its philosophies. His first decision to accept Jim as
his companion for travel illustrates Huck's debunking of the preconceived notion of
slavery's refusal to see blacks as people. (D) Jim will not allow Huck, whom he knows as
a person, to assume his old status towards him in this new community. Then, when Huck
brands himself a lowdown abolitionist, Twain manipulates irony to criticize the lowdown
society that stigmatizes men who attempt to free slaves. Huck then attempts to destroy
the conscience barrier society has instilled in him when he accepts Jim, the runaway
black slave, as an equal in their partnership for survival. With Huck's utterance of the
famous phrase, they're after us, the reader realizes that to Huck, he and the black slave
stand on equal footing. (67) Huck realizes the innate goodness within Jim that so few men
possess, because his profound and bitter knowledge of human depravity never prevents him
from being a friend to man. (Marks, 47) Once he rejects society's stereotype of the black
man, Huckleberry will go to great lengths to protect his travelling companion. In order
to protect Jim and himself, Huck must imitate a fragile female as he pries for
information in the Loftus household. When Mrs. Loftus accuses Huck of lying, he verifies
this suggestion, but only with another lie. (66) The purpose of this ironic passage is to
demonstrate that even though he lies to respectable ladies, he is really a very
respectable person because his deception allows an innocent black man to escape the evil
grasps of servitude (Marks, 47). But Huck is not yet a purely altruistic soul; he must
still travel miles of river before he can wash away the stains of his initial assistance
to Jim which was based partly on his own self-interest in escaping.
Throughout the adventure on the river, uncivilized Huckleberry Finn demonstrates the
truest probity when confronted with various moral dilemmas. An example of Huck's moral
probity occurrs during the shipwreck scene. While searching the ship for valuables, he
encounters two murdering thieves who are preparing to kill another man. Huck and Jim
managed to escape, but once safe, Huck's first thought focuses on possible ways to rescue
the two murders as he considers how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a
fix. I says to myself, there ain't no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself
yet, and then how would I like it? (B, p47) Huck heroically exemplifies his pure will as
he actively pursues the rescue attempt of the gang of murderers. So when Huck must
virtually bribe the watchman to save the men with a tall tale, his moral heart shines in
the face of the lazy watchman's societal corruption from which Huck's conscience stems.
And when later in the novel he attends a circus where a drunken man insists riding a wild
horse, Huck once again deomnstrates his superiority over society. As the audience laughs
hysterically at the poor drunk, Huck admits that it [is]n't funny to [him]...;[he] was
all of a tremble to see his danger (p.#) In all of these incidents, Huckleberry Finn's
active concern for his fellow man demonstrates the uprightness of his intuitive heart
when compared to the society which surrounds it. Huck's instinctive senses prove to
surpass his societal conscience as he encounters new characters on his travel down the
river with Jim. Simplicity stands as one of Huck's overriding virtues. Although
civilization severely mistreats him, he is a boy who will never cease to forgive,
befriend and car about his fellow man. (C, p21) With his collision with the Duke and
King, this factor becomes crucial in explaining Huck's behavior. Twain seriously explores
the ethics of self- interest throughout the many underhanded schemes instituted by the
two frauds. When these two hooligans swindle the grieving Wilks family out of $6,000,
they cross the intrinsic moral line present throughout the book. Mary Jane Wilks
overwhelms him with honesty until he can no longer tolerate his society of frauds. The
fact that this infuriates Huck to the point of resolving to steal back the very money
that he assisted in pilfering demonstrates the inherent goodness which presides in his
moral heart. And when these same two frauds are tarred and feathered,
overly-compassionate Huck is actually sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor
pitiful rascals...[because] human beings can be awful cruel to one another (C, p70). And
as Huck develops his moraltiy on the river, his relationship with Jim transforms as well.

Reverting to the dilemna of slavery in the end of the novel, Huck reaches the highest
moral peaks as he acknowledges Jim as an actual friend who he decides to protect out of
the goodness of his heart. Perhaps the most famous line of the novel is, All right then,
I'll go to hell! When Mark Twain allows his main character to utter these self-damning
words, he forces the reader to face the irony of benevolent Huck's accepance that whoso
would save his soul must lose it (A, p79). By offering to sacrifice himself to the devil
for Jim, Huck wins his moral struggle as innate goodness triumphs over evil. However, his
justification for saving Jim must be an alarm. Twain repeatedly demonstrates how absurdly
immoral the larger world was, and to a certain extent currently is. Since so little is to
be hoped for from such a world, a moral theory of individual expediency acquires
plausibility. Huck declares that he will go to hell to save Jim, but in actuality the
whole world will go to hell for not wanting to save him. The intensity of this moral
struggle suggests his deep involvement in the society, which he now rejects. This
decision ends Huck's moral quest, his commitment to a human community. He resolves each
conflict in the same way: without repudiating the authority of his conscience, he will
disobey it and come to Jim's rescue. (D, p412) But when Huck finally rejects the
authority of his conscience by not writing to Miss Watson, he reaches this true
community.