Huck Finn Morality Essay

Morality plays an important role in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck Finn is an uneducated, thirteen-year-old boy who does not necessarily know the difference between right and wrong, but he often makes the right choices throughout the novel. He helps Jim, a runaway slave, escape even though he knows it is “wrong.” However, there are many instances where Huck does not treat Jim with respect and there is some evidence that Huck would not help other runaway slaves in a similar situation. This is Jonathan Bennett’s main point in his essay, “The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn,” as Huck has a bad morality and while he often accidentally does good, it is not enough for him to be a morally good person as he lacks the conscience …show more content…
Since he is a slave, the reader is not predisposed to seeing Jim above the white people in the novel, but he truly is above them because of not only his heart but also his conscience. For example, Jim shows understanding of abstract moral principles when he has a conversation with Huck about treating friends badly. Before this conversation, Huck and Jim are separated from one another, with Huck on his canoe and Jim on his raft. When they eventually find their way back to one another, Huck tries to trick Jim by pretending that they were never actually separated and that Jim dreamed the whole thing. Jim tells Huck about his “dream” and makes the fog and the troubles he faced on the raft into an allegory of their journey to freedom. However, Jim soon notices all the dirt and tree branches that collected on the raft while he was alone and realizes that Huck is lying to him. Jim gets mad at Huck for making him look like a fool after worrying so much. This shows Jim’s intellect as he quickly deduces that Huck is messing with him. Jim is also demonstrating his belief in moral principles because no one should lie to someone after all they did was worry about you and that you should treat your friends better than how Huck treated