Some young children grow up fast and others grow slowly. If children grow up in an arduous situation or are constantly exposed to tragic accidents and hard, life-changing decisions, they will mature much quicker than normal. They end up losing their childhood innocence far too fast. Their decisions in matters of the head and heart reflect this. In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a young boy struggles with conflict between his head and heart which accelerates him into maturity before his time. Huck has a conscience and at the beginning he occasionally actually uses it, however, this is a rare occasion. The first time that his conscience is seen is at the point in which he realizes exactly what he has done by helping Jim to
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At this point he has relapsed back into using mental tricks to make himself feel better about his choice, which is to not send Miss Watson a letter. He writes a letter to Miss Watson and instantly he feels better and he is happy because he thinks that because of the letter he has narrowly avoided hell. But then he remembers what Jim did for him and how Jim always treated him right and with comradery and then he sees the note that he wrote and he feels awful for just writing it. He gets all trembling and then he takes the paper and he says “All right then, I’ll go to hell.” (191) At this point he rips the paper up as well as the shackles that society had put on him from a very young age. Right now Huck has already matured beyond what several adults will ever be. He would consign himself to hell in order to do what he thinks is right even though everybody else would tell him differently. He has clearly seen for the first time that Jim is his friend and that Jim is just as human as he. Huckleberry is even mature enough to step out of his childish, self-centered bubble and begin to look out for other people. For example, he tries to save Tom from shaming himself and his family by giving Tom another chance to back out of his promise. Huck does not yet know what Tom knows, that Jim is already a free man and because he cares about all of his friends, Huck does not want Tom to keep his word to rescue Jim and follow Huck to hell. He feels the need to protect Tom from becoming like him, uncivilized and without a respectable
At this point he has relapsed back into using mental tricks to make himself feel better about his choice, which is to not send Miss Watson a letter. He writes a letter to Miss Watson and instantly he feels better and he is happy because he thinks that because of the letter he has narrowly avoided hell. But then he remembers what Jim did for him and how Jim always treated him right and with comradery and then he sees the note that he wrote and he feels awful for just writing it. He gets all trembling and then he takes the paper and he says “All right then, I’ll go to hell.” (191) At this point he rips the paper up as well as the shackles that society had put on him from a very young age. Right now Huck has already matured beyond what several adults will ever be. He would consign himself to hell in order to do what he thinks is right even though everybody else would tell him differently. He has clearly seen for the first time that Jim is his friend and that Jim is just as human as he. Huckleberry is even mature enough to step out of his childish, self-centered bubble and begin to look out for other people. For example, he tries to save Tom from shaming himself and his family by giving Tom another chance to back out of his promise. Huck does not yet know what Tom knows, that Jim is already a free man and because he cares about all of his friends, Huck does not want Tom to keep his word to rescue Jim and follow Huck to hell. He feels the need to protect Tom from becoming like him, uncivilized and without a respectable