Morals In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain

Society influences everyone who lives in it, and to a lesser extent, those who live outside of normal society. When people choose to live in society they accept the ethics and rules that go along with it. When people refuse, it's because their morals go against things in society, or they can’t live with the rules. These rules have evolved and changed over the years, especially in the South during the 1850s. In his adventure novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain addresses the changes in society and how a strong set of morals will often conflict with the current ethics of society.

Huck is immediately introduced as the pragmatic protagonist of the story. He joins the boys in playing ‘robbers and murderers’ although Huck,
While life and society want Huck to react one way, he almost always follows his moral compass. When Pap comes back to claim Huck, he does the only thing that will get Pap to leave him alone, fakes his death “ I says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore and the drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things.“ (Twain, 44). Huck runs away from society because society has failed him. Society allowed him to be taken by Pap, who is an abusive and mean drunk. When Huck manages to escape from Pap, he comes across Jim, a runaway slave who used to belong to Ms. Watson. Huck decides to help Jim “Well, I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest INJUN, I will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don't make no difference. I ain't a-going to tell, and I ain't a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le's know all about it.” (Twain, 52). Huck fights with his conscience on whether to help Jim, because he was raised on the belief that a slave is a person's property and helping them escape is bad. As said by an anonymous reviewer in The Hartford Courant “Most amusing is the struggle Huck has with his conscience in regard to slavery. His conscience tells him, the way it has been instructed, that to help the runaway, [slave] Jim to escape--to aid in stealing the property of Miss Watson, who has never injured him, is an enormous offense that will no doubt carry him to the bad place; but his affection for Jim finally induces him to violate his conscience and risk eternal punishment in helping Jim to escape.”(Courant reviewer). Even though it's going against society, Huck swears not to tell anyone that Jim is a runaway, or where he is hiding. Huck is a good