Head vs. Heart Moral dilemmas comprise Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Whether the issue is if Huck should turn Jim in, if he should help the murderers, or if there is a difference between borrowing and stealing, Huck is constantly wrestling with right and wrong. Throughout the novel, Huck’s experiences force him to rethink the opinions that he had been raised with. While Huck frequently makes the wrong choice, his compassion usually lets him know when he’s made a mistake. After faking his own death in order to get away from his father, Huck comes across Jim, who has run away. Jim asks Huck to help him escape down the river. Huck shows empathy when he promises Jim that he won’t turn him in for being a runaway slave; he says: “I said I wouldn’t and I’ll stick to it,” (Twain 45). By not turning Jim in, Huck disregards what people would think of
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Eventually, they begin to feel remorseful about their constant theft. Huck has had two conflicting moral codes in his head: “Pap always said it warn’t no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time, but the Widow said it warn’t anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it,” (Twain 72). Huck and Jim have to decide for themselves what is right and wrong when it comes to “borrowing.” Since Huck was raised with such different ideas about borrowing, his conscience is deformed. Huck and Jim chose to solve this moral dilemma by combining Pap’s and the Widow’s rules and deciding to steal only two or three items. Mark Twain himself described Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as “a book where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision. And the conscience will suffer defeat!” Huck uses his sound heart and acts on his feelings, despite everything he has been taught by society, Pap, and the Widow. Throughout the novel, Huck follows his heart instead of his
Eventually, they begin to feel remorseful about their constant theft. Huck has had two conflicting moral codes in his head: “Pap always said it warn’t no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time, but the Widow said it warn’t anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it,” (Twain 72). Huck and Jim have to decide for themselves what is right and wrong when it comes to “borrowing.” Since Huck was raised with such different ideas about borrowing, his conscience is deformed. Huck and Jim chose to solve this moral dilemma by combining Pap’s and the Widow’s rules and deciding to steal only two or three items. Mark Twain himself described Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as “a book where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision. And the conscience will suffer defeat!” Huck uses his sound heart and acts on his feelings, despite everything he has been taught by society, Pap, and the Widow. Throughout the novel, Huck follows his heart instead of his