Wisdom is not something that can be taught, but must be developed through personal experiences and practices. Huckleberry Finn is an extraordinary young boy with a vast amount of wisdom. While faced with numerous trials and tribulations during his journey down the expansive and mystic Mississippi River with a runaway slave, Jim, Huck gathers valuable lessons about morality and selflessness, some of which are foreign and unfamiliar to the folks of the antebellum south. Twain’s depiction of Huck’s journey, as well as that of the members of southern society, made the novel highly controversial for its time, and beyond. However, through The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, author Mark Twain portrays childhood as a time riddled with both curiosity
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Huck first meets the well-to-do Grangerford family after he and Jim miss their turn-off in Cairo, up to the free states. Huck Finn is welcomed into their wealthy and extravagant life and enjoys experiencing the highest rung of societal class, especially when he befriends the youngest member of the family, Buck. The Grangerfords are highly respected within the community and treat Huck with an amount of regard he is unused to, but they are in the midst of a bloody family feud of which no one knows the origin. When Huck witnesses the brutal killing of Buck, he and Jim immediately flee and start back down the Mississippi. The two conclude “there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft” (Twain, 155). From Buck’s harrowing murder, Huck realizes that the southern tradition of feuds applied by the most reputable members of society is vastly and grossly exploited and rejects it as cruel and brutal. Mark Twain reinforces in Huck the need to draw realistic lessons from all types of occasions, which he believes and can live by. Huck learns that the high-class society he is supposed to be aspiring to is hypocritical …show more content…
Throughout the narrative, Twain shows the increasing repugnance towards Jim from those the pair encounter along the river. Although peaceful aboard the raft, they live in constant fear of Jim being recaptured, and come close to it several times, but Huck decides early in the book that telling a few lies to sidestep a ugly confrontation is in fact ok. Surrounding Huck are individuals that believe slaves have no emotion, no intelligent thought, and lack the right to be labeled as humans, which make it difficult for him to decide what to make of Jim. However, towards Huck, Jim is loving and fatherly, and worries about him constantly, always wanting to keep him out of harms way and protect him from the unkind world he, Jim, is so familiar with. One night, Jim tells Huck a story of how he mistakenly hit his daughter when he was unaware she had gone deaf, and that he continues to feel guilty about it after all this time. Huck, shocked, says, “I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does theirn. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so” (Twain, 201). With this, Huck essentially decides to disregard what society has supposedly taught him as ‘right’ and only draw assumptions about Jim (and as an extent slaves in general) from
Huck first meets the well-to-do Grangerford family after he and Jim miss their turn-off in Cairo, up to the free states. Huck Finn is welcomed into their wealthy and extravagant life and enjoys experiencing the highest rung of societal class, especially when he befriends the youngest member of the family, Buck. The Grangerfords are highly respected within the community and treat Huck with an amount of regard he is unused to, but they are in the midst of a bloody family feud of which no one knows the origin. When Huck witnesses the brutal killing of Buck, he and Jim immediately flee and start back down the Mississippi. The two conclude “there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft” (Twain, 155). From Buck’s harrowing murder, Huck realizes that the southern tradition of feuds applied by the most reputable members of society is vastly and grossly exploited and rejects it as cruel and brutal. Mark Twain reinforces in Huck the need to draw realistic lessons from all types of occasions, which he believes and can live by. Huck learns that the high-class society he is supposed to be aspiring to is hypocritical …show more content…
Throughout the narrative, Twain shows the increasing repugnance towards Jim from those the pair encounter along the river. Although peaceful aboard the raft, they live in constant fear of Jim being recaptured, and come close to it several times, but Huck decides early in the book that telling a few lies to sidestep a ugly confrontation is in fact ok. Surrounding Huck are individuals that believe slaves have no emotion, no intelligent thought, and lack the right to be labeled as humans, which make it difficult for him to decide what to make of Jim. However, towards Huck, Jim is loving and fatherly, and worries about him constantly, always wanting to keep him out of harms way and protect him from the unkind world he, Jim, is so familiar with. One night, Jim tells Huck a story of how he mistakenly hit his daughter when he was unaware she had gone deaf, and that he continues to feel guilty about it after all this time. Huck, shocked, says, “I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does theirn. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so” (Twain, 201). With this, Huck essentially decides to disregard what society has supposedly taught him as ‘right’ and only draw assumptions about Jim (and as an extent slaves in general) from