The Moral Progression of Huckleberry Finn
The Moral Progression of Huckleberry Finn
The main character of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn undergoes a total moral transformation upon having to make life-defining decisions throughout his journey for a new life. Huck emerges into the novel with an inferiority complex caused by living with a drunken and abusive father, and with the absence of any direction. It is at this point where Huck is first seen without any concept of morality. Fortunately, Huck is later assisted by the guidance of
Jim, a runaway slave who joins him on his journey and helps Huck gain his own sense of morality. Throughout Huck’s adventures, he is put into numerous situations where he must look within himself and use his own judgement to make fundamental decisions that will effect the morals of which Huck will carry with him throughout his life.
Preceding the start of the novel, Miss Watson and the widow have been granted custody of Huck, an uncivilized boy who possesses no morals. Huck looks up to a boy named Tom Sawyer who has decided he is going to start a gang. In order for one to become a member, they must consent to the murdering of their families if they break the rules of the gang. It was at this time that one of the boys realized that Huck did not have a real family. They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or something to kill, or else it wouldn’t be fair and square for the others. “Well, nobody could think of anything to do– everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson–they could kill her (Huck).” At this moment, Huck is at the peak of his immorality. A person with morals would not willingly sacrifice the life of someone else just in order to be part of a gang. It is at this point where Huck can now begin his journey of moral progression.
Huck encounters his first major dilemma when he comes across the wrecked steamboat and three criminals. When Jim and Huck take the skiff for themselves, leaving the three robbers stranded, Huck realizes that he has left them...