Religious Hypocrisy In Huck Finn

Religion is one of those things that people either accept or reject. The closest thing to proof pertains to a book or two, maybe three, written by men over a few-hundred-year span. Believing purely means taking someone’s word for it. It is a complex idea. In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck has no idea where to begin in trying to understand the mysterious idea of Christianity. Huck learns all sorts of morals and values from his guardians and from sunday school, but in his own living and experiencing, he faces internal conflicts as he finds that he disagrees with many of society’s expectations. Mark Twain uses satire throughout his novel to criticize the religious hypocrisy that occurs in American society.
At the beginning …show more content…
Society has taught Huck that slavery is ethical and that slaves are property who do not have or deserve feelings, but Huck can sense the immorality of owning another person and restraining his or her rights. After Huck writes a letter to Miss Watson telling her where her runaway slave has gone, he begins to reflect upon his relationship and experiences with Jim. Throughout their adventures, Jim has protected and cared for Huck, just as Huck has for Jim. Huck narrates, “I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing...but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie—and He knowed it...I would take up wickedness again…and for starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again,” (227-8). Earlier, Huck learns that he will burn in hell if he does wrong, such as help free a runaway slave. But in this moment, after he writes the letter to Miss Watson, Huck identifies the wrongness of this notion, and, considering all they have experienced together, decides he would rather go to hell than send Jim back into Jim’s version of hell, slavery. When Huck says “He knowed it,” he is referring to God; at the beginning of the story, he is introduced and confused by religion, but as the novel progresses the reader notices Huck’s making more references to God or Providence. It seems as though Huck has come up with his own idea of God or a different higher power. Although Miss Watson would say God approves of slavery, Huck feels that it is wrong, and thus he believes God also knows it is wrong. Throughout the novel, Huck grows on the reader, causing he or she to agree with him; With this in mind, Twain uses Huck to illuminate the wrongness of society, helping to spark flames of passion in each person to want to end