Huck's Morals and Changes

In the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the main

character Huck Finn undergoes many moral changes. In the beginning

of the book, Huck is wild and carefree, playing jokes and tricks on

people and believing them all to be hilarious. When Huck's

adventures grow to involve more people and new moral questions never

before raised, you can tell that he has started to change. By the

time the book is almost over, people can see a drastic change in

Huck's opinions, thoughts, and his views of "right and wrong".

Sometimes, serious events can affect a person's morals, opinions,

and values. This is clearly shown in Huck as his adventures progress

further into seriousness. Even through the seriousness, Mark Twain

has still added a twist of humor to keep everything interesting,

and that is what keeps readers interested in reading the book. Readers

might even be affected by reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

their opinions prior to reading the book and opinions following

the exposure to these ideas may differ.

Huck's views on theology, "right and wrong" opinions, views of

slavery, and the tricks he plays all reflect the beliefs that Huck

holds when he is introduced in the early part of the book. Hucks

opinion of religion shows his lack of concern for serious things.

When lectured on heaven and hell (by which he refers to by the "good"

and "bad" place respectively), he quickly decides that he wants to

go to the "bad" place because he finds no interest in singing and

praying to god, while the bad place appeals to him as he hears

that his friend Tom Sawyer is going to the bad place. His views of

praying also reflect his lack of serious concerns. Instead of

praying for help in finding faith, he prays for a fishing line.

This upsets him when he finds that there are no fishing hooks

(Pg. 13) and takes prayer lightheartedly until faced with another

moral problem later into the book. His carefree and wild ways are

expressed with his superstitions as well. This is shown with his

throwing salt over his shoulder (Pg. 18) and his other superstitions

such as burning the spider, about the snakeskin, and talking

about the dead (Pg. 61). Another way Mark Twain expresses Huck's

wildness and confused morals is that he never tells the truth.

One of his bloated lies is the one about being a girl (Pg. 68) that

he keeps bloating and bloating to cover up his old lies. His

seriousness later changes as the book

progresses.

By the middle of the book, Huck has shown certain sines of

improvement. He now realizes that Jim is more human than he was led

to believe. Huck's view of "right and wrong" have changed. He

still lies and plays jokes, but now he feels some guilt whenever

he does this. An example of this is when he tricks Jim into believing

he was dreaming about the fog. When Jim says "en trash is what people

is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en makes 'em feel ashamed",

(Pg. 105) which in more correct spelling means "trash is what people

are who put dirt on their friend's heads". This makes Huck feel bad

enough to apoligize and he finally realizes that tricking Jim is wrong

and that he has feelings. He also before that, had lied to save Jim

from getting caught by saying that Jim was white and had a disease

so that people wouldn't look for Jim and probably catch him. His

seriousness grows after he sees Buck die, and Buck had been somewhat

of a friend to him (Pg. 153). Later, when they encounter the "King"

and the "Duke" (Pg. 159), and even later when he finds out that the

King and the Duke are frauds, he does not tell Jim, but for a good

reason. This reason is so he does not make Jim feel ignorant or

gullible. This shows an improvement in Huck, that he still keeps the

truth away, but he does it for the good of others now.

By the late part of the book (or of what we read), Huck shows

more seriousness to religion and actually thinks of how religion and

his morals are contradicting. He stops to think of which should

overrule. (Pg. 268) Religion, as he understands it, tells him stealing

is wrong, and combined with what he was taught, it makes helping a

slave escape appear as stealing. On the other hand, Huck see's

Jim as a human and wants to help him. Jim is his friend, and Huck

now holds staying with your friends as one of his values. So after

thinking seriously about it and even writing a note to Miss Watson,

he eventually decides that his values overrule religion (by then

ripping up the note), even though religion is still a force that

should be thought about. In his eyes, he is going to go to hell and

suffer eternally because of helping Jim escape and not returning

him back to his "owner". This later shows that Huck is an

"all the way" kind of person (meaning if he does something wrong

and is going to have to suffer consequences for it, he might as well

enjoy doing it). When he figures out that the "King" has sold Jim,

he goes out to find Jim (Pg. 273). We can now see that Huck is

caring over his friends now and that he sticks by his morals as

much as he can, and Huck's morals have changed alot since the

beginning. He does not seem to enjoy lying to people anymore if it

hurts others. His dislikes of hurting others with lies started from

when he tricked Jim about the fog and felt bad, to when he decided

he would tell the truth to Mary Jane in a note (Pg. 243).

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an excellant example

of how people can change over time and events. This is shown in the

above reasons. Huck generally feels that "humans are good and

trustworthy, but you always have to watch out for people that

always want to make a benefit at others loss". He is shocked by

the fact that people have a tendency to do incredibly kind things

(like when he helps Jim) and the fact that people can do terrible

things to hurt others emotionally (as shown by the King and the Duke's

heartless ways to get money, which even include disrespect to the dead).

Huck talks to his conscience in many of the previous statements.

He talks with his conscience to find what choice is better, turn in

Jim or help Jim, and when he decides to help Mary Jane. As a general

whole, the human race is generally good and kind, but there are always

some exceptions.