Why Adventures of Huck Finn Is a Bildunsgroman

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a bildunsgroman because by the end of the book, Huckleberry Finn is a changed boy in many different ways. The central conflicts of the story are person vs. self and person vs. society, because Huck continually finds himself battling to decide on whether he wants to be socially acceptable or morally sound. At the beginning of the novel, Huck is a wild boy who blindly follows others, disregards authority, and believes in superstitions. By the end, he outwits his enemies, understands the difference between right and wrong, and values his own beliefs rather than those of his society. These changes, and more, are due to three main developments of Huck’s character: intelligence, maturity, and moral beliefs. Perhaps less obviously, Huck’s intelligence seems to grow a lot throughout the story. Although, Huck does start out as a pretty intelligent boy, demonstrated in the first few chapters as he sneaks his way out of the house at night, plays pranks on the townspeople, and fakes his own death to escape his father. When Huck finds himself at the Grangerfords’, he cleverly makes up a very intricate and convincing lie about himself. This shows how he is growing in intelligence. By the time Huck is at the Wilks’, he finds himself stumbling on his own lies while talking to Mary Jane Wilks, and he is even told he needs to work on his lying because it “didn’t come natural,” according to the real Peter Wilks. While living on the Phelps’ farm, Huck realizes how his way of lying and trickery is different than that of Tom Sawyer; Tom likes to make things outrageous and complicated, while Huck just wants things to get done quickly and easily. Huck also realizes that a lot of what Tom thought was “needed” to be done wasn’t really needed, and that simpler ways are often the better ways. Here Huck shows his grown intelligence, because

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