While reading the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I noticed a common theme involving pride and honor. Throughout the novel Huck Finn and other characters comment on what makes an honorable man and how one can be proud of his accomplishments. We first see an example of this with Tom Sawyer; it also resonates throughout the life of Huck Finn and his relationship with Jim.
Tom Sawyer is seen early in the novel wanting to form a band of thieves with his friends. He comments on how robbers and thieves have a great sense of accomplishment and are quite honorable. He immediately forms this band of robbers in search of acceptance and pride. It is interesting how something so morally wrong such as robbing innocent people can be seen as a good deed to children in the South during this time period. It shows the inner calamities that are occurring during these children’s lives.
Next we see Huck Finn talking about life on the river and his time as a raftsman. He says, “There was a power of style about her. It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that.” I feel that Huck has been so beaten down with his father’s unruly nature and Miss Watson’s extreme strict attitude, that Huck needs something like this raft to boost his confidence and allow himself to have some place in society.
Huck battles with himself over his honor when taking Jim with him to a free state. Huck talks about how he would never turn Jim in, but realizes that he is committing a very serious crime. What’s most interesting to me is that Huck wants to help Jim to safety, but he wants to do it for himself, not Jim. Early on we get the sense that Huck wants to get Jim to safety for his own pride.
1 comment:
My passage isn’t in one specific part of the book, but instead my example encompasses Huck's development throughout the novel. The very last line of the novel is the best example of how Huck doesn’t want to be civilized, as he says "...Aunt Sally says she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it." This quote is evidence for my opinion, which is that Huck frees Jim for other reasons than just self pride, like Laree thinks. He frees Jim because his realization of the way in which Jim was being treated was apart of the inappropriate "civilization" he was not interested in living in. Huck was very concerned about how people lived and how their thoughts and ideas created the society that surrounded him, and by traveling around with Jim, he was able to show the audience that he was against not only the things in which we think of as civilized, but also the idea of holding a black man in captive to do work for no pay. Huck was not happy with the society that surrounded him, and by leaving for free states with Jim, Twain was able to depict Huck’s feelings for the society around him. So all in all, Huck’s focus was not inward, on pride, but really on the environment that surrounded him and how it would have affected his life had he decided to participate in it.
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