The choices and actions that an individual makes are influenced through a variety of different mediums. A long-standing psychoanalytical debate has former over two such influences: nature against nurture. Does an individual make decisions based on what is predisposed by the genetic information passed on through hereditary by one's parents or do external influences dominate the nature of an individual? Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald show through The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby that their stance on this issue leans toward an external experience that directs the actions and choices that an individual will choose to make. By evaluating the social conflict that is established in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby the theory of nurture and external influences will be shown to play the dominate role in affecting the choices that Huckleberry Finn and James Gatsby make.
             Both writers focus on similar social and economic conflicts to establish their stance on the issues of nature vs. nurture. Each novel demonstrates these conflicts in a slightly different manner, but still focus on the same theory. In demonstrating the conflict of race Twain focus' his ideas on the slavery of black; while Fitzgerald broadens to include all non-Caucasians. Those of lower economic standing are looked down on in The Great Gatsby, but Twain does not degrade the lower class in the same way. The treatment of women as second class citizens or the weaker race is clearly the same in both of the novels.
             Before embarking on a journey of social conflict pertaining to the choices these characters make, it is important to refute the possible contradictions that these novels possess. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the protagonist Huck Finn seems to defy society in his decision to help Jim escape in his famous line, "All right, then, I'll go to hell." (Fitzgerald 235) This line sh...