Struggle Between Heart and Conscience
             When Robert Frost writes of "two roads diverged in a wood, and I-/ I took the one less traveled by/And that has made all the difference" ("The Road Not Taken"), he demonstrates the realization of both writers and the hoi-polloi that following the accepted path of society not always directs an individual in the proper direction. While few people would disagree with the principle, most do not concede to the action. Since such moral conflicts continuously plague the lives of common people, writers commonly portray such simple problems in their novels. But just as not all moral decisions allow for an obvious solution, not all writers choose to portray such one-dimensional conflicts. Often a person's intuition conflicts with pervading conventions in solving an obscure problem, as demonstrated by the Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The main character of the novel, the youthful Huckleberry Finn, uses his intuition throughout the novel to guide him in the correct path. Employing various episodes involving not only the runaway slave Jim but also other characters, Twain efectively conveys to the reader a complex moral problem that the young Huck must face in the nineteenth century slave-holding society. Even Huck, with a limited education and sparse worldly knowledge, finds himself bursting to escape from the shackles of society's brainwashing in order to follow his heart. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain examines the struggle between Huck's corrupt societal conscience and his moral heart to criticize society's seeming morality.
             In order to impart on the reader the true moral standing which he wishes him to uphold through the rest of the book, Twain extrapolates on the subject of slavery in the nineteenth century in the first few chapters of the novel. Up to Huck and Jim's confrontation in the woods, Twain only allows Huck to view Jim as a ridiculously ign...