Twain
Drifting toward Freedom In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain, through the character Huck, tells the story of a young boy’s coming of age amidst the conflicts and constraints of mid-1800s society. A recurring theme throughout the novel is the conflict between society and the individual. As Twain developed the plot he was able to to weave in his criticism of society. The idyllic life on the raft contrasts sharply with the deceit, greed, and prejudice found on the shores of the Mississippi. For Huck and Jim, the River serves as a refuge from the crippling values of the “dry land of civilization”. The river embodies the freedom for which Huck and Jim were searching. These two runaways - one a slave, the other an uneducated, and defiant boy - attempt to build a sanctuary from civilization upon their raft. It is here on the river that they can experience what it is like to be truly free from the expectations of society. Huck longs for nothing more than an escape from the harsh cruelties of “sivilization” so he “lit out...and was free and satisfied”(Twain). The river offers Huck refuge from a society so corrupt, that it would place a young boy in the hands of a drunken and abusive father. On the rive . . .
The feud between the Grangerfords and the Sheperdsons adds to Huck’s distaste for society and it’s teachings. He is a human being with feelings, and hopes for a better future. Jim speaks with great compassion of “saving money buy his wife. Huck is able to recognize that what they are doing is wrong. Both his experiences on the river and the events he witnesses on the “shore of civilization”, greatly influence Huck’s moral development. Throughout Jim and Huck’s travels on the river, kindness, honest an equality prevails. The Duke and Dauphin provide an insight into the lives and values of the shore, and show a deep contrast between Jim and Huck, and the rest of society. He is free to make his own choices and form his own opinions. But somehow I couldn't see no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind…I studied a minute sort of holding my breath, and then I says to myself: 'All right, then, I'll go to hell'…" (Twain 270-271). Huck has decided to go against his conscience by freeing Jim, and in doing so, he rejects society. His clear rejection of these values shows further progress in his moral development. Two feuding families, the Grangerfords and the Sheperdsons, are a satirized look at the lives of Southerners and of organized religion. Both families bring their guns to church to hear a sermon “all about brotherly love” and on the way home they discuss “faith, and good works, and free grace”(Twain 93). Huck witnesses the severity of the feud firsthand when Buck attempts to shoot Harney Sheperdson.
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