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In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain presents the idea that society can greatly influence an individual, and sometimes the individual must break from the accepted values of society to determine the ultimate truth for himself. In Huckleberry s world, society has corrupted justice and morality to fit the needs of the people surrounding him. Huck however looks to his own morals to question the validity of a practice that has been inscribed into his daily life, slavery. Huckleberry decides to ignore society s thoughts and puts his own life in jeopardy to aid a runaway slave.
In Huck s moral reconciliation, he is able to disregard the ideas of society and depends on his own choice of right and wrong. Twain urges his audience to understand that society can never decide what is morally right but the individual who must come to a decision on his own. Huck's non-conformist attitude creates a conflict between him and society. With a highly abusive drunkard for a father, Huckleberry relies solely on himself from his childhood. Because of this, he effectively alienates himself from the rest of society. Society continues to try to reform him, but Huck shows his lack of appreciation in the effort from the very beginning of the story.
He says that the Widow Douglas took him for her son and would sivilize him, but Huck gets back into his old rags and his sugar hogshead again, and is free and satisfied. His actions are based on instinct and his own experience, rather than conventional conscience. As a result, he makes up the rules for himself as he goes along, forming a conscience that is keenly aware of society's prejudices but actions based on that which he has experienced. Ironically, often his own instincts hold him to a higher moral standard than those of society. His decision to help free Jim, a slave, is an example of one such instance. Huckleberry recognizes Jim as a human being, but fights the beliefs bestowed upon him by a society that believes slaves should not be free.
Tom Sawyer, an individual who as well thinks like society, influences Huck s young mind on slaves. Tom manipulates Huck into stealing Jim out of slavery and does things with no sympathy. While Huck follows Tom, he looks at blacks including Jim as most ruined, for a servant. Huck is oblivious to the justice, the righteousness, and even the heroism of his own actions, which are simply in accordance with his own conscience. The climax comes in the end of the novel, when Huckleberry's moral reconciliation reaches its peak. Up until this point in the novel, Huckleberry has been experiencing internal conflicts concerning society s treatment of Jim and his own.
Society has brought him up to believe that Jim is nothing but property, rightfully belonging to Miss Watson, and so Huck would be wrong in helping Jim flee. At the same time, however, his experiences with Jim, and his own personal instincts about the situation tell him that he is doing the right thing. Huck feels terrible because he cannot please both voices of his conscience. Huckleberry feels as though society is right, and he is wrong. At first, he begins to write a letter to Miss Watson to return Jim, but then ends up destroying the letter, deciding to help free Jim. Specifically, Huck says, All right, then Ill go to hell, right as he tore up the letter.
Huck is willing to risk his own life to help a black and a human being. This indicates that he believes himself to be evil, but in his heart nothing could be more righteous. He makes a morally admirable choice when he decides to follow his own ideas of what is right. However, Huck s moral reconciliation leads Twain s audience to believe that society leads individuals in the wrong path and that to become wholesome we must follow ourselves. A British novelist, Fay Weldon, once said that the best and lasting response from readers come from a happy ending through moral development. Through Huck s journey with Jim and his discounting of society, he becomes morally developed.
Huck acts as a much greater person when confined from the hypocrisies of society. Throughout the novel, we see how he distances himself from society and creates his own world which he follows his own feelings and experiences concerning what is honorable and morally correct. From the beginning of the novel, we see how his instincts come into play and how it affects his decisions throughout the story. He usually goes his own way, makes up his own mind, and lives by his own standards.
Twain uses this individualism to show that society does not lead us to the correct paths rather it is our own thoughts that are pure and correct.
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