Question: Referring to as many parts in Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as you deem relevant, examine Huck’s tussle with “morality”.
In Huckleberry Finn, the issues of morality, race and societal hypocrisies are examined and satirized in the light of Huck’s growing moral constitution. Huck’s initial code of morality is presented as antithetical to society’s notions of morality and legality; often landing him in moral dilemmas and crises. However, it is undeniable that these struggles provided Huck the opportunities to learn and acquire new vistas of morality; adding on to his own survivalist moral codes which may at best be described as instinctive, functional and situational. As Huck tussles between believing in his own moral …show more content…
Huck, by now, is resolute in his mission to save Jim, faces more moral challenges on land. Huck endeared himself to the hospitality of the affluent and cultured Grangerfords and when Jim pleaded with him to escape, Huck refused. It is only when Jim was whipped and the Grangerford’s bloody feud with their neighbors and Shepherdsons boiled over, did Huck decide to leave with Jim. Huck also “cried a little when I was covering up Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me.” (175) and apologizes for lying about his identity. By now, Huck is beginning to demonstrate that he is departing from the street moral code of instinctive, functional and situational mores. His morality is sensitized into evaluating the antebellum South’s unthinking values on tradition and honor, church and feuding as futile and pointless violence: “The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same’ (169)” Later witnessing the slaughter of the Grangerfords traumatizes Huck as he declares that “it made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain’t agoing to tell all that happened” …show more content…
Huck ponders: “I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix....” (127) Huck, feeling morally obligated to correct his wrong, informs a captain in hopes that the three criminals will be rescued before drowning in the wreckage. His evolving constitution of morality is seen in the episode where Huck discovers the plans of the King and the Duke to swindle the Wilks sisters of their uncle’s fortune. He was so appalled that “enough to make a body ashamed of the human race” (226). His subsequent effort to help Mary Jane to recover the inheritance was an exemplary act of moral courage as he has to put his life on the line. His revelation of the two fraudsters caused them to be “tarred and feathered” (254) and Huck in a measured display of human compassion remarked that: “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.” (302)
Huck comes to terms that morality and legality are at odds and he has to have his own moral stand. He was visibly shaken by Sheriff Sherburne’s indiscriminate killing of Boggs, the town drunkard who was “the best-naturedest old fool in Arkansaw – never hurt nobody, drunk nor sober” (204). This incident made Huck realized that like slavery, what is legal may not be
In Huckleberry Finn, the issues of morality, race and societal hypocrisies are examined and satirized in the light of Huck’s growing moral constitution. Huck’s initial code of morality is presented as antithetical to society’s notions of morality and legality; often landing him in moral dilemmas and crises. However, it is undeniable that these struggles provided Huck the opportunities to learn and acquire new vistas of morality; adding on to his own survivalist moral codes which may at best be described as instinctive, functional and situational. As Huck tussles between believing in his own moral …show more content…
Huck, by now, is resolute in his mission to save Jim, faces more moral challenges on land. Huck endeared himself to the hospitality of the affluent and cultured Grangerfords and when Jim pleaded with him to escape, Huck refused. It is only when Jim was whipped and the Grangerford’s bloody feud with their neighbors and Shepherdsons boiled over, did Huck decide to leave with Jim. Huck also “cried a little when I was covering up Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me.” (175) and apologizes for lying about his identity. By now, Huck is beginning to demonstrate that he is departing from the street moral code of instinctive, functional and situational mores. His morality is sensitized into evaluating the antebellum South’s unthinking values on tradition and honor, church and feuding as futile and pointless violence: “The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same’ (169)” Later witnessing the slaughter of the Grangerfords traumatizes Huck as he declares that “it made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain’t agoing to tell all that happened” …show more content…
Huck ponders: “I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix....” (127) Huck, feeling morally obligated to correct his wrong, informs a captain in hopes that the three criminals will be rescued before drowning in the wreckage. His evolving constitution of morality is seen in the episode where Huck discovers the plans of the King and the Duke to swindle the Wilks sisters of their uncle’s fortune. He was so appalled that “enough to make a body ashamed of the human race” (226). His subsequent effort to help Mary Jane to recover the inheritance was an exemplary act of moral courage as he has to put his life on the line. His revelation of the two fraudsters caused them to be “tarred and feathered” (254) and Huck in a measured display of human compassion remarked that: “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.” (302)
Huck comes to terms that morality and legality are at odds and he has to have his own moral stand. He was visibly shaken by Sheriff Sherburne’s indiscriminate killing of Boggs, the town drunkard who was “the best-naturedest old fool in Arkansaw – never hurt nobody, drunk nor sober” (204). This incident made Huck realized that like slavery, what is legal may not be