In “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, the author, Mark Twain, masterfully employs the technique of narrative implication to uncover various moral questions from multiple characters. The novel’s main character, Huck Finn, is also the narrator, who creates a colloquial, nonmeaningful style that highlights the differences between human beings’ good and bad actions. Twain presents us with several characters that exhibit questionable morals, and Huck seems to be an immoral liar, though gradually, Twain slightly rebuffs evil morality by using other forms to show correct morality. Huck’s trip with his friend, the runaway slave Jim, causes him to encounter different people and situations that question and show another moral dimension of life. Society norms are one of the main topics the novel edited. This looks at the innate goodness within everyone. The process of Huck’s maturation leads Twain to the conclusion that many of the wrongs that vice-laden human society is inflicted with are mainly related to racism and slavery matters.
One significant way through which Twain depicts morality is by portraying characters who are morally questionable. In the novel, Huck is introduced to a society that has an even darker side, including, for example, his father, who is a drunk and grave robber who is kidnapped and accompanied by Injun Joe. The characters of Huckleberry Finn, including Huck himself, perform terrible deeds that show the world of this character as being cruel and conveniently allowing such things to happen. Twain is quite bold and direct as he names and offers the characters’ imperfections or vices, which is his way of criticizing the society that promotes such behavior. Twain in this sentence, “The most dangerous tangled thread in adventure after adventure is that of humanity’s cruelty, which appears both in an individual characters and the casually one-sided historical phenomena such as slavery,” this quote reveals Twain’s ultimate theme of moral criticism, in which he focuses on the widespread cruelty in humans beginning from individuals’ innate character to the social tolerance to immoral practices.
Huck finances his moral torments after the query of whether to get on Jim, the runaway slave, brought to the authorities. Entering upon the situation of Jim despite the racist society of his time, Huck’s thinking grows on the issue of slavery morally. The internal conflict is for Tom, an initiator, to distinguish immorality from society. Jim’s psychological development and growth serve as the principal aspect of Twain’s examination of morality. Huck faces an inevitable situation; torn between his naive prejudice and loyalty, he forges a story in which Jim is the one deciding to go back to slavery on his own. Huck’s internal struggle against prejudice reaches a point of no return as he eventually rejects all God’s laws and humanity’s will to continue the aid to Jim, concluding, “All right; then, I’ll go to hell!” (Twain 130). In this regard, Twain once again hits the nail on the head because, through this, he unmasks the moral dilemmas of society.
In particular, Twain also brings other people to give hours to moral upbringing and to serve as a guide for Huck. The widow and society, Doug in general, will stand for norms and morality, trying to teach morals to Huck simultaneously without breaking the existing customary prejudices. As the book is filled with morally corrupt individuals, his presence shows them in a different light. Twain weaves characters like Tom Sawyer, boyish in nature but whose actions and adventures are pure and represent righteousness, into the story. Tom’s character starts dim and unexpressed in his plot in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” However, it is then developed into a symbol of American boyhood and all his innocent mischievousness from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Being biased in his presentation in this section also feeds into Twain’s inquiry into morality and the complicated nature of living in a society characterized by paradoxes.
In “Chapter 16”, Huck’s practicality in the cliffhanger is the focal point as the rafts well toward the Ohio River’s mouth. The story’s main character, Jim, is predominantly thrilled about the chance to sail down the Ohio River and gain freedom. At the same time, he symbolizes the dignity, which is a right of every human being. Huck goes through the whole psychological cataclysm as he lives in the so-called Civil War time and is raised in Southern society with its stereotypes. Now, he starts to consider that runaway slave (Jim) was caught and put in jail. But Huck, during a difficult meeting, shows his loyalty to Jim, which is more vital than words. Huck’s elaborative story that he conjured up for the two men who were hunting for runaway slaves to deceive them reflects his negative attitude toward the laws of God and humanity, representing a rejection of the very principle of evil that is deep-rooted in society. The situation then turns out to be a phase of Huck’s moral development, as he becomes an independent social outlaw and defies the already accepted norms of his society.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain portrays Huck as a sufferer from the bad social walls but also aware of the contradictions between his feelings of brotherhood towards Jim and the walls of prejudices. This moment then makes taking “the route to Hell” a figurative act of defiance against the corrupting system built by our society. It leads to a more profound condemnation of such practice. Huck’s travel put too many moral dilemmas, at last ending with his accepting separation from racial supremacy and outrage that he was born in society. Twain uses first-person narrative with Huck as an objective narrator, thus implying what the character feels and adding the truth-telling factor to the story. The ethical issues Huck struggles with, as well as his eventual choice to stay by Jim’s side, is Twain’s hidden but clear expression of his criticism towards society. Twain proved his strong condemnation of immorality by presenting characters like Emmeline Granger Ford, a parody of the well-known horrible American poet Julia A. Moore. The author pokes fun at people who adore Emmeline’s flowery and mournful lyrics by showing the superficiality and hollowness of the viewing public, who tolerate mediocrity and wrongdoing in art and morality.
Work Cited
Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 125th Anniversary Edition: The only authoritative text based on the complete, original manuscript. Vol. 9. Univ of California Press, 2023.
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