How should families parent children in today’s society? Most people today would say the parents -- mother, father, etc. -- would have most of the control but the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn would suggest otherwise. Parents should give their children more power to parent themselves in order to raise them to become better people. Parenting today has changed quite a lot since the 1840’s, but some qualities have remained after all this time. The traditional family will raise a child in a way that fits their beliefs as well as their society’s. This can be equally good or bad depending on the situation. For example, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the main character, Huck Finn, was adopted by an upper class Widow, which was determined
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That’s a simple example that scratches the surface of the issue. In order to better understand Huck’s situation, one has to know that, excluding the Widow, Huck had no one to parent him. Nevertheless, Huck turned out to be a better human being than most others around him. Huck was more sympathetic towards strangers and did not wish ill-treatment on anyone -- even his enemies. When the Duke and King were being chased out of town, tarred and feathered, this is what Huck said at the sight of it, “Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another (Twain, 183).” If the story was narrated through one of the townspeople that committed the act they would call it justice. Therefore, how has Huck overcome this way of thinking? The simple answer is parenting. When Huck had no one to turn to he turned to himself. Some would say that Jim became Huck’s role model/ father figure, but this just is not the case. To illustrate this point, when Huck played a childish prank on Jim, it was not Jim that made him take responsibility for his actions, but instead himself. “It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed HIS foot to get him to take it back. It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for
That’s a simple example that scratches the surface of the issue. In order to better understand Huck’s situation, one has to know that, excluding the Widow, Huck had no one to parent him. Nevertheless, Huck turned out to be a better human being than most others around him. Huck was more sympathetic towards strangers and did not wish ill-treatment on anyone -- even his enemies. When the Duke and King were being chased out of town, tarred and feathered, this is what Huck said at the sight of it, “Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another (Twain, 183).” If the story was narrated through one of the townspeople that committed the act they would call it justice. Therefore, how has Huck overcome this way of thinking? The simple answer is parenting. When Huck had no one to turn to he turned to himself. Some would say that Jim became Huck’s role model/ father figure, but this just is not the case. To illustrate this point, when Huck played a childish prank on Jim, it was not Jim that made him take responsibility for his actions, but instead himself. “It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed HIS foot to get him to take it back. It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for