Morality Issues in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Through the life experiences of Huckleberry Finn, a young adolescent boy living in the Antebellum South, and a runaway slave, Jim, Mark Twain depicts their maturation and development through their pursuit of freedom, righteousness, and escape from a society they view as hypocritical and unjust. The two travel down the Mississippi river towards Cairo, encountering many obstacles that interrupt their journey and test their moral conscience and survival skills. Huck and Jim solve these difficult tasks based on their own sense of logic and what their developing conscience tells them. Thus, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest of America’s earliest novels due to Twain’s commentary on the influence of the views of southern “society” on two adolescent boys.
The quest for freedom is expressed throughout the course of the novel. At the most basic level, both Huck and Jim seek freedom from slavery, and the Mississippi River provides the freedom to escape the landed society they are rebelling against. Huck, although opposed to the constraints of civilized imposed on him by the Widow Douglass and Ms. Watson, seeks escape from society’s view of justice. When Huck is kidnapped by his father Pap Finn, it soon becomes clear to Huck that Pap Finn only wants his money, and the beatings and insults compel him to seek freedom from this cruelty. By ruling that Pap Finn has custody of Huck, “The judge privileges Pap’s “rights” to his son as his natural father over Huck’s welfare.” (Notable American Novelists, Vol. 3, p. 1039). Twain has depicted Huck as little more than his fathers’ slave and evokes his empathy for the similar plight of Jim. Both seek the freedom to control their lives, rather than the injustice of a society which embraces the concept of slavery. “Both Huck and Jim are fulfilling an American dream of living as they choose to without being subject to the restraints and restrictions...