Huckleberry Finn Individual Vs Society Analysis

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain is a satiric novel written about the antebellum South. In the novel, a young boy, Huck, goes on a journey with an escaped slave, Jim, up the Mississippi river. Along the way, the two form a friendship that crosses the line set out by society. The major theme of the novel is the conflict between the individual and society. Within the novel, Huck battles with his conscience and societal pressure over his decision to help Jim escape the bondage of slavery. Huck’s conflict between himself and society is present throughout the novel. In the beginning, Huck fought with the pressure of being civilized. “The Widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilized me…I lit out. I got into my old rags, and my sugarhogschead again, and was free and satisfied” (131). Despite the effort to civilized him, Huck did not want to conform. The theme becomes more prominent when Huck faces the choice of helping Jim, a runaway slave, escape from the bondage of slavery or turning him in. Huck lives in a society that look at African Americans as property. He struggles between what his conscience considers right and what society considers right. On one hand, society states that turning in a runaway slave was the …show more content…
When Jim was sold off by the King and Duke, Huck completely disregarded society and its rules for rescuing his friend, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” (262). However, it turns out that Huck’s resolved were pointless. Before Miss Watson passed away, she had freed Jim, “She was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river, and said so; and she set him free in her will” (307). While the conflict was resolved, it made the theme of the novel less impactful. What was a moving novel about a boy’s journey to young adulthood and a slave’s journey to freedom, was trivialized by the fact that Jim was freed all