The Struggle Within Huckleberry Finn

2 Pages 624 Words

The Struggle within Huckelberry Finn

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel about a boy’s struggle with his inner conscience in the Missouri of the 1800’s.
Huckleberry Finn spends most of his time floating down the Mississippi River on a raft with a runaway slave named Jim. The novel illustrates Huck’s battle with his conscience over slavery, education, and society’s beliefs. Huck is a rebellious young boy who finds himself taking some responsibility and maturing throughout the novel.

Although Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn twenty years after the Civil War, America was still struggling with racism and the aftereffects of slavery; especially the South. Jim is a runaway slave and the companion of Huck Finn as they both travel down the river. According to the law, Jim is Miss Watson’s property, but according to Huck’s logic and fairness it seems “right” to help Jim. As Huck spends more time with Jim he stats seeing him as a friend instead of a slave or a fugitive on the run. An example of this is when Huck encounters a group of slave hunters and makes up a story in order to lure them away from Jim. But Jim remains at the mercy of every character in the novel, including Huck, as the letter that Huck nearly sent to Miss Watson shows the inner conflict that he is struggling with. Nonetheless Jim remains a loyal friend and he is actually the only adult who provides a positive example for Huck to follow.

Huckleberry Finn has morally educated himself throughout the novel rather than intellectually. Most of the novel illustrates the maturation and development of Huck. He is a poor, uneducated orphan boy who does not trust the teachings that others try to install in him. When Huck meets Jim he starts to question the teachings he received especially regarding race and slavery. More than once Huck chooses to “go to hell” rather than following the rules and going along with what he has bee...