A Sermom of Lies

             In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain attempts to show the contrast between what Huck and Tom value. By using these two characters who are some what different in what they value, Twain shows how absurd such issues as religion and mob mentality can be. The main thought Twain tries to express is the struggle to become an individual in a world full of conformists.
             Twain did a good job in the book to show how Huck rejects convention, while on the other hand Tom just cannot understand why someone would do anything else. "The widow sivilize me; but it was rough living, in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out"(3). Huck sees how ordinary The Widow is and he leaves, by doing this Huck rejects schooling, religion and all else that is commonplace. Huck sees all of these as monotonous subjects as instruments of convention, so he rejects them and by doing so he helps himself become more of an individual. On the other hand Tom is fully indoctrinated into their society; "Why blame it all we've got to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?" (10). Tom's rebuttal is so foolish and invalid to the issue that was raised by Ben Rodgers, it makes him sound almost robotic and as if he knows nothing more than the books and authorities. For the most part Huck wouldn't follow Tom's authorities but with the large crowd inside the cave Huck goes ahead and agrees with him anyway.
             Although Huck usually doesn 't go with the norm he seems to have a lot of trouble following his own instinct when Tom is around. "Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper" (10). The way that Huck words the sentence using "they...

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A Sermom of Lies. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 04:40, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/100570.html