Preview

Should Huck Finn Be Free

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
353 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Should Huck Finn Be Free
In the novel Huckleberry Finn, Huck grew up with a slave, Jim, as his father figure. Since Huck's father was not in the picture, Jim filled that role even though he was a slave. As Huck and Jim ran away, Jim took care of Huck and put Hucks needs first, even if that meant risking his own freedom. These kind acts that Jim showed to Huck lead him into believing that Jim should be free because Huck knew how kind Jim was. However, this idea was not universalized by Huck. When Huck met up with Jim while they were both running away Huck was faced with the difficult question of whether or not he should turn Jim in. Throughout the book, Huck kept revisiting this thought that he was doing something wrong and would go to hell for helping free a slave.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    From a very young age, Huck was taught and expected by others in society to look down on African Americans. Throughout the novel, however, Huck begins to develop and change his identity through his changing feelings towards African Americans. This is most clearly shown in his attitude towards Jim, the runaway slave. Originally, Huck treats Jim as society taught him to. However, one extremely critical scene in the novel sparks a change of identity in Huck. In this scene, Huck loses Jim, who floats away in the fog on a raft. Huck eventually finds Jim and convinces him that he dreamt the whole thing. Eventually, however, Jim puts the clues together and realizes that Huck lied and tricked him saying, “What do dey stan’ for? I’se gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore out wid work, en wid de callin’ for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’ k’yer no’ mo’ what…

    • 984 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Despite the pre-civil war time period and racial tension existing in Huckleberry Finn’s life, he became best friends with a runaway slave. At the beginning of their journey, against society’s teachings, Huck decides to help Jim to freedom. From there he begins an incredible relationship that ignores the color of skin or the social norms. At one point near the beginning of Huck’s and Jim’s trip up the river, Jim declares, “I’s a free man, en I couldn’t ever ben free ef it hadn’ ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole Jim’s got now” (106). Later in the story, Jim is taken back into slavery. Huck believes that by helping Jim, a slave and the property of Miss Watson, escape, he will be damning himself to an eternity in Hell. However, Huck knows there’s something wrong with allowing Jim to be in captive and without rights and freedoms. Huck says, “But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind… I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s go now” (249). After a lot of thought, Huck declared, “I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again” (250). Although Huck thinks that being a friend to Jim and protecting him from white slave owners is wrong because of his racist upbringing, he decides that Jim is a person just like himself. He chooses to protest against the unjust social rules that ruled the pre-civil war south. Because Huck stands up for what is right even in the face of discrimination or being an outcast by being true to Jim and their…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Racism, a main theme throughout both books reveals itself in many ways. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn takes place during the 1830’s – 1840’s, in Missouri, a slave state. During this time period, slavery was a controversial issue; and amongst the main causes for the civil war. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck learns to bond with a slave, Jim. Throughout the course of the novel, Jim and Huck become close friends and he realizes that he cares for him. Huck disregards most common opinions throughout society, he is associated with this slave who is supposedly ‘less than human.’ Jim, the slave, is an intellectual human being despite the fact that he is treated as a lesser life form.…

    • 1675 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jim is a slave. For most people living in this time period in the novel, that is about all there is to know about slavery. These next three paragraphs will explain how Huck and Jim’s relationship changes over time. Nobody really cares what about the slave’s feelings they’re just slaves to the white community people. Jim and Huck are both very unique, and complex characters. Huck’s attitude toward Jim changes from Huck thinking Jim is just property and an ignorant slave who is below Huck’s class in society, to feeling Jim is Huck’s good friend and equal. Huck is raised in a society where slaves were apart from individuality and humanity, slaves by definition they are owned. Unlike Huck, Jim was not able to…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Despite Huck’s original intentions, by the time he finds a person and is about to turn Jim in he realizes that he can’t do it (Twain 112). Jim is never aware of how much of his future Huck controls. In this way Jim is portrayed as the average ignorant slave that most Americans would have expected at that time. Twain also gives Jim some other roles like that of a freedom, fearing slave, to combat the expectations of that time (Hyejin 2). Growing up in the South, surrounded by the everyday use of slaves, Huck has been trained to accept the concept that black men and women are the property of the white man. Once Jim begins to flaunt the audacity that was coming with his freedom, all the years of tradition come back to Huck and make him feel…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck's first moral dilemma comes when he meets Jim on Jackson Island. Huck's reaction to hearing of Jim's escape is one of shock; he could not believe a slave could run away from their master. Slaves at that time rarely ran away and what were the chances Huck would be the person to encounter a slave. Jim running away from his master is seen as a terrible sin and Huck is torn over what he should do in the situation. Being from the south Huck automatically sides with slavery for that is all he’s ever known. Huck does promise not to turn Jim in, however, despite knowing that if anyone knew that “Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was to ever see anybody from that town again, I’d be ready to lick his boots for shame” (p. 261) Although Huck disagrees with the idea of runaway slaves, he likes Jim, and so warns him that dogs are coming on to the island. Huck’s heart and mind often contradict themselves and he goes against what he knows is right for what he feels for Jim.…

    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the book progresses However, his opinions quickly change over Jim, he started having a connection with him. Jim has this very caring father-like persona, towards Huck, they start having such a connection that just doesn't happen between man and slave. Many times Huck had the option to betray him, to turn him in, but he doesn’t, he goes the hard way because he was his friend. Just like this book these are the situations that had happened between society and blacks, that made people start realizing they are just the same as us.…

    • 385 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the story, Huck and Jim went through many things together, but they never gave up hope. They were going to get Jim his freedom at all costs. At the end of the book is when Huck finally realized that Jim was…

    • 639 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mark Twain's novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, encompasses a wide variety of moral implications faced by the main character, Huckleberry Finn. In the beginning, Huck was forced to decide what to do regarding his father. He could continue to subside to his father's actions, which would result in more abuse, or he could run away to escape the trauma he faced at home. Huck chose the latter, and embarked on a journey down the Mississippi River with Jim, the escaped slave. Throughout his journey, Huck would face many more difficult moral decisions. From realizing he was inadvertently helping Jim escape slavery, to ruining the Duke and King's plan, young Huckleberry Finn was forced to make many important decisions based solely upon his natural instinct.…

    • 1196 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    During the nineteenth century in the US, citizens faced a variety of struggles including immigration and segregation. In the book Huckleberry Finn, we become aware of the discrimination going on in this early epoch. The author, Mark Twain, addresses these painful American contradictions through Huck in an equal and rather “free” society. Huck chooses to ignore what society thinks and he decides to do what he feels is right. Huck says “I was ever so glad to see Jim. I warn’t lonesome now.” (Twain 166) At this point, Huck no longer sees Jim as just a slave. Huck sees Jim as a kind of partner. Huck decides to save Jim when he is faced with an ultimate decision. He must decide between his conscience and what feels right to him. “I was trembling because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 1914 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We have discussed in class the nature of Huck and Jim’s unusual relationship and the purpose that Jim, an African American former slave, serves in the novel. I believe the above quotation explains the reason Jim’s character is in the novel, by illustrating the moral shift in Huck’s beliefs. This shift is the turning point of Huck’s moral beliefs which he struggles with through the novel. It is clear after this situation that Huck no longer sees Jim as just a slave, and Jim’s purpose in the novel is to educate Huck on the immorality of treating human beings as anything less than human. Before this quotation was written, the situation of the novel was Jim was just sold by Duke and Dauphin, and is being held in a shed owned by Tom’s Aunt and…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Huck and Jim started out hardly even knowing each other. Then Huck ran away to an island and Jim was on the island because he had ran away as well (49). They thought it would be best if they stayed together and traveled south down the river (49). Their friendship was growing as they traveled. At the beginning of their travels, Huck had contemplated turning Jim in because he was a runaway slave. But as they kept traveling, Huck began to realize how much Jim cared and he began to second guess himself on turning Jim in. Soon, Huck began to feel bad for even thinking about turning Jim in, even if that was the ‘right’ thing to do…

    • 587 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    assist Jim towards his liberation or turn him into his slave owner. Numerous times Huck is at an internal conflict. At one point in the novel, Huck was going to turn Jim in to slave hunters. Once Jim had told him that he was the “best friend Jim’s ever had,” Huck decided against the action. As the…

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Huck feels guilty for helping Jim escape and starts to regret it, so Huck thinks things over in is head “Jim said it made him over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom, well I can tell you it made me all trembly and feverish too, to hear that he was most free- and to blame for it? Why me! I couldn’t get that thought out of my conscience no how nor no way”(pg.66). It becomes obvious that Huck is torn between doing what is considered right and turning Jim in or what a part of him feels would be right and protect him. This conflict keeps eating away at Huck until he cannot take any more of it when he says “my conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever”(pg.67) However the pressure of society finally get to Huck “ until at last I say to it “let up on me- it ain’t too late - ill paddle ashore at first light, and tell.” I felt easy, and happy and light as a feather; right off all my troubles was gone”. Huck convinces himself that turning in Jim is right thing to do. However as he approaches the slave hunters Huck realize he cannot do it. “What’s that yonder?” the slave hunters asked…

    • 1984 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays