Huckleberry Finn "Right vs Wrong"

1340 Words6 Pages
Who determines your definition of ‘right and wrong’? Imagine you were at your friend’s christmas party. The theme of the party is to wear a bright red sweater but you only have a bright green sweater and you hate the color red. You really want to show up to the party so you go, despite the fact you’re not in dress code. You get there but every eye keeps glancing in your direction. By the end of the party, your friend is angry at the fact you didn’t listen, but you don’t pay them any mind because you had fun any way. The main idea of the party was to have fun and that’s what you did. Throughout this multi-genre novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain highlights society’s views on rules in contrast to Huck’s, Jim’s, Tom’s, and Pap’s views on rules suggest it is acceptable to disobey rules you see as wrong. Huck Finn has disobeyed rules that he believes, himself, to be wrong but society thinks otherwise. After Jim confesses to Huck about why he was in the woods, Huck doesn’t go and turn him in for a reward because he promised not to (Twain, pg. 32). This shows that Huck doesn’t have much of a problem with Jim being a runaway slave and is a loyal companion. Another example of Huck’s altered views is when he witnesses the Duke and Dauphin being humiliated in public. On pg. 174, Twain writes, “...here comes a raging rush of people… I see they had the king and the duke, though they was all over tar and feathers… It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another”. The townspeople poured hot tar on the two frauds and covered them in feathers. During the Antebellum period, which is the time Twain bases this novel in, this example of public humiliation was torture when trying to remove the feathers from their skin because you’d end up ripping your skin off. When Huck recognized the two men, he felt bad for them. This was a huge

More about Huckleberry Finn "Right vs Wrong"

Open Document