Good And Evil In Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn
The conflict between good and evil is one of the most common conventional themes in literature. In fact, all literature, in its simplest form, is a struggle between good and evil. This statement simplifies the idea that all themes and struggles in literature, when broken down into their most basic forms, are conflicts between good and evil. This conflict can be divided into two ways, an external conflict and an internal conflict. In the matter of one’s life, he will consistently face this battle of the balance of internal good and evil in his life. Many times evil wins the battle and draws the individual down the wrong pathway in life. Even though evil won, does not mean that internal good is forever lost. Human beings, regardless of their
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Throughout the whole novel, Huck gradually grew in his love for Jim, ultimately seeing him as a father figure. In some of Huck’s actions, the readers saw his compassion for Jim. When the two first met, Huck showed his inner goodness by feeding the starving Jim. “Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved. Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied” (42). Huck’s inner values of accepting Jim by aiding him with food won out over the Southern social norms. Another instance of Huck’s protecting Jim was shown when he convinced two white gentlemen that the person on his raft was his pap who had smallpox (90). It also indicated that Huck was starting to recognize Jim as a fatherly figure. By the end of the novel, Huck was willing to steal Jim from the Phelps so they could be free together. Without Jim, Huck could not experience the full satisfaction of freedom and had no one with whom to enjoy that freedom. “When I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sunshiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybody’s dead and gone” (218). He was experiencing freedom as something that was meaningless and only something accompanied by the empty and lonely sounds of nature. He would rather die than exist in that kind of lonesome freedom. Huck was willing to risk his life in order to save his companion, so they could continue to be free with each other. Under the right influences of Jim, Huck was able to discover a person he never thought he could
Throughout the whole novel, Huck gradually grew in his love for Jim, ultimately seeing him as a father figure. In some of Huck’s actions, the readers saw his compassion for Jim. When the two first met, Huck showed his inner goodness by feeding the starving Jim. “Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved. Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied” (42). Huck’s inner values of accepting Jim by aiding him with food won out over the Southern social norms. Another instance of Huck’s protecting Jim was shown when he convinced two white gentlemen that the person on his raft was his pap who had smallpox (90). It also indicated that Huck was starting to recognize Jim as a fatherly figure. By the end of the novel, Huck was willing to steal Jim from the Phelps so they could be free together. Without Jim, Huck could not experience the full satisfaction of freedom and had no one with whom to enjoy that freedom. “When I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sunshiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybody’s dead and gone” (218). He was experiencing freedom as something that was meaningless and only something accompanied by the empty and lonely sounds of nature. He would rather die than exist in that kind of lonesome freedom. Huck was willing to risk his life in order to save his companion, so they could continue to be free with each other. Under the right influences of Jim, Huck was able to discover a person he never thought he could