While Huck insists on thinking for himself, Tom does not hesitate to mimic the romantic adventure stories he reads. Their conflicting moral views and attitudes underscore the differences between the two boys, setting them apart as foils. Twain uses Tom Sawyer in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to highlight the theme of Huckleberry Finn’s growth throughout the novel, serving to emphasize Huck’s emotional and intellectual development. The two teenage boys, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, grew up in different environments. This difference is a crucial reason for their conflicting views.
Huck is stolen away from his civilized home for the sake of money, and taken to live in a dreary shack with his abusive father. Pap is a dreadful man who is always treating Huck horribly and is constantly berating him. Pap was a wicked parent, an alcoholic, and his drunkenness regularly threatened Huck’s health. He was more concerned about money and alcohol than he was about Huck and was unquestionably a negative influence through the moral values that he taught Huck. “He said he'd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise
Eddie’s father was a drunk and never showed any affection. When Eddie came home from the war, he was injured. His father yelled and tried to hit him, Eddie so happened to block it and never speak to his father again. Ruby, the third person Eddie meets in Heaven, teaches him to let go of anger and forgive his father. Another conflict is the conflict between Eddie and himself.
“Yes, He’s got a father, but you can’t never find him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain’t been seen in these parts in over a year or more”(8). Dealing with this amount of fear every day is astounding and yet through it all Huckleberry found time to provide for himself. Huckleberry taught himself how to survive without falling into the negative influences his father has set for him. Soon to be followed by the first example of Huckleberry’s father abusing him.
Jim was more of a father figure in Huck’s life rather than his actual father. The opening of the book displays a series of events for Huck, " Huck awaits the arrival of his father, escapes him, rushes off in a blaze of ambivalence with his alternate father, Jim." (Segal 20) Just like any child, Huck was in need of a father in his life. He couldn’t talk to the Widow about everything and she wasn’t really his “family.” Huck was extremely rebellious growing up because he didn’t have a father figure tell him right from wrong. The only person Huck could relate to was his friend Tom Sawyer; unfortunately Tom wasn’t the best role model for Huck.
When Allie died, Holden smashed every window in his garage; his violent action foreshadowed his later self-destructive personality. Holden has been suffering from the loneliness of his brother’s death since he was thirteen. He never confronted this pain and instead avoids it; Holden is a compulsive liar and he distances himself from people by being cynical. By distancing himself from people, Holden believes he can never feel the pain that occurs as a result of a beloved, deceased individual. While Holden uses his self-imposed alienation as a defense, he is unaware that it severely damages his well-being.
his arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him . . . ” (Golding 65). The boys struggle to come to terms with the reality of being trapped on the island without any grownups and therefore expect the usual punishments that were expelled upon them during their lives prior to the crash.
Lennie, being mentally slow, gets himself and George into trouble countlessly causing them to run from place to place in an attempt to escape the repercussions of Lennie’s actions. On page 11, George tells Lennie the trouble he causes; “ ‘You can’t even keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get. Jus’ keep me shovin’ all over the country all the time. An’ that ain’t the worst. You get in trouble.
In Mikal Gilmore’s personal narrative “My Brother, Gary Gilmore,” he describes his two brothers and father as the “teenage rebellion of the fifties” (1) for the fact that they each looked “for a forbidden life” (2). It was a life where they just did what they wanted to do without anyone stopping them. For example, “They would smoke cigarettes, drink booze and cough syrup, skip and ditch class” and sometimes “take part in gang rumbles” (2). The Gilmore Family has no authority and rules made for them to follow. They live in a life of unstructured hierarchy in the sense that no one in the Gilmore family has total power to control the actions of those committing crimes, which helps us understand why the Gilmore brothers and even the father choose to be living a forbidden life.
They both ran as fast as they could. When they were 15, Victor got drunk and proceeded to beat Thomas up for no apparent reason and instead of Thomas getting mad an hitting him back, he didn’t he just went home like nothing had ever happened. Victor is a young Indian man who was reckless, has no real connection with his family members, except for his Mother. Since his father left him and the reservation when he was young, Victor has gotten rebellious and hostile at times. He drinks and does not feel any real connection to the Native American Indian ways of life.