Relative Morality
In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain, the author explores the relativity of morality through the main character Huckleberry Finn by placing him in many situations where the difference between right and wrong is difficult to clarify. Through the reactions of Huckleberry in these situations, Twain deeply emphasizes the importance of one’s own moral conscience and also the fact that what one holds to be moral based on their own experiences is most significant, while he criticizes the hypocritical moral criterions of society and promotes questioning minds. One of the main themes that Twain portrays throughout his book is that one’s personal experiences are most significant when determining what is moral. …show more content…
He uses two topics to demonstrate this; slavery and religion. First, Twain provides us with two examples of the hypocritical attitude toward slavery, the first of which being when Huck concocts a story to avoid being caught. He pretends to be Tom Sawyer when Tom’s Aunt mistakes Huck for him, and when she asks why he was late to their house he lies and states that a cylinder on the ferry he was on blew out, killing an African American. She then responds with, “Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt” (Twain 221). Twain uses this scathing comment to criticize the hypocrisy of the time. Tom’s Aunt practically states the African Americans are not people with that sentence. The second example would be found where Huck again concocts a story to avoid being caught when he pretends to be a runaway boy to trick a woman into telling him about the search for Jim, his runaway African American friend. She tries to help Huck, but states that she had sent her husband with a shotgun to go look for him on an island and that he can “slip around through the woods and hunt up his campfire…” (Twain 58). Twain uses Huck’s story to equate Huck and Jim, as they are both runaways, and then he portrays the hypocrisy and inequality when the woman states that she sent her husband to hunt Jim. Hunt Jim with a gun, like an animal. These two examples …show more content…
Twain nods to the idea that one should use their own moral conscience, based on their own experiences, to determine the morality of an action or idea. Twain also rejects the idea of giving into whatever society tells a person, and he emphasizes a questioning mind to avoid the hypocritical criterions for morality that society states are
In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain, the author explores the relativity of morality through the main character Huckleberry Finn by placing him in many situations where the difference between right and wrong is difficult to clarify. Through the reactions of Huckleberry in these situations, Twain deeply emphasizes the importance of one’s own moral conscience and also the fact that what one holds to be moral based on their own experiences is most significant, while he criticizes the hypocritical moral criterions of society and promotes questioning minds. One of the main themes that Twain portrays throughout his book is that one’s personal experiences are most significant when determining what is moral. …show more content…
He uses two topics to demonstrate this; slavery and religion. First, Twain provides us with two examples of the hypocritical attitude toward slavery, the first of which being when Huck concocts a story to avoid being caught. He pretends to be Tom Sawyer when Tom’s Aunt mistakes Huck for him, and when she asks why he was late to their house he lies and states that a cylinder on the ferry he was on blew out, killing an African American. She then responds with, “Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt” (Twain 221). Twain uses this scathing comment to criticize the hypocrisy of the time. Tom’s Aunt practically states the African Americans are not people with that sentence. The second example would be found where Huck again concocts a story to avoid being caught when he pretends to be a runaway boy to trick a woman into telling him about the search for Jim, his runaway African American friend. She tries to help Huck, but states that she had sent her husband with a shotgun to go look for him on an island and that he can “slip around through the woods and hunt up his campfire…” (Twain 58). Twain uses Huck’s story to equate Huck and Jim, as they are both runaways, and then he portrays the hypocrisy and inequality when the woman states that she sent her husband to hunt Jim. Hunt Jim with a gun, like an animal. These two examples …show more content…
Twain nods to the idea that one should use their own moral conscience, based on their own experiences, to determine the morality of an action or idea. Twain also rejects the idea of giving into whatever society tells a person, and he emphasizes a questioning mind to avoid the hypocritical criterions for morality that society states are