A Triumph of Innocence
When Huckleberry Finn decides to help Jim to freedom, his conscience is as deformed as it has always been. His general attitudes towards slavery and race remain largely unchanged, and his declaration, “All right then, I’ll go to hell,”[1] is better described as a dedication to personal loyalties than a moral revelation. It is clear, however, that Huck’s journey down the river has instilled in him a great distrust of society, its rules, and its justice. Though Huck himself lies, steals, and swears, greater evils than these—bitter hatred and violence—prove to make up the fabric of a “good” society. Huck’s disillusionment and moral confusion are inevitable in what Twain helps us realize is a morally inverted society. So when a difficult choice faces him, Huck, as only a boy can, surrenders himself not to his conscience, a product of his society and era, but to his heart, where he finds a morality informed by his innate human kindness.
Huck’s time at the Grangerford household weakens his deformed conscience by undermining his confidence in the society that molded it. Initially, however, the Grangerfords represent all the attractions that society holds even for an unconventional boy like Huck. The head of the family, the colonel, oversees a large estate with over a hundred slaves, and its material grandeur and the family’s supposed gentility impress our young protagonist. The senseless violence simmering right under this guise of propriety, however, is revealed one day when Buck Grangerford explains that his family is in a feud with a neighboring (and also devoutly Christian) family, the Shepherdsons. No one can remember how or why the feud started. Huck’s stay with the Grangerfords comes to an abrupt end when a gunfight breaks out between the two families that kills young Buck. Huck’s first real-life encounter with death proves a far cry from the flippant conversations about murder Tom Sawyer and his band of robbers had in the beginning of the novel. This is also the first and last time we ever see Huck cry. But, as always, Jim is waiting for Huck by the river, a recurring reminder to both Huck and the reader that there is rhyme, reason, and reassuring predictability to life in a setting governed by natural law. In comparison to the river’s simplicity, it becomes all the more clear that the Grangerfords and the society they lived in were a bundle of contradictions. “There warn’t no home like a raft, after all.”[2]
Huck’s hatred for seeing others hurt reveals not only his distaste for violence, but also a true dedication to personal relationships that is essential in shaping his good heart. This dedication becomes evident during Huck’s time at the Wilkses’, where Huck finds that he can no longer tolerate the dauphin and the king’s antics. Though a liar and a thief at times himself, Huck knows petty consequences from real ones, and cannot bear to see the orphaned Wilks sisters cheated out of their inheritance. After some deliberation, he hides the Wilkses’ money and reveals to Mary Jane the true nature of the two scammers. But what drives Huck to make this selfless choice is less his sense of righteousness than his deep admiration for Mary Jane. “In my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see… If ever I’d a thought it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn’t a done it or bust,”[3] says Huck, in his usual self-deprecating manner. Although Huck is younger than Mary Jane, he views her as a symbol of innocence, and wants to protect that innocence. Perhaps Huck sees in Mary Jane what he himself had before he became privy to the world’s darker secrets—both a good heart and a good conscience, or an immediate readiness to do the right thing.
The sad truth at the center of Twain’s social commentary is that society and human nature have diverged to such an extent as to be fundamentally incompatible. So when Huck considers the choice before him at the end of the novel, he resignedly says, “I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things”[4]—between the river and the shore, or correspondingly nature and society. Huck’s deformed conscience tells him that his choice to help Jim to freedom is the choice of a fallen boy. But in the reader’s eyes, Huck embodies the innocence Twain believes we are all born with—and which only the truly good amongst us retain.
[1] Chapter XXX, pg. 162
[2] Chapter XVIII, pg. 88
[3] Chapter XXVIII, pg. 145
[4] Chapter XXXI, pg. 161
When Huckleberry Finn decides to help Jim to freedom, his conscience is as deformed as it has always been. His general attitudes towards slavery and race remain largely unchanged, and his declaration, “All right then, I’ll go to hell,”[1] is better described as a dedication to personal loyalties than a moral revelation. It is clear, however, that Huck’s journey down the river has instilled in him a great distrust of society, its rules, and its justice. Though Huck himself lies, steals, and swears, greater evils than these—bitter hatred and violence—prove to make up the fabric of a “good” society. Huck’s disillusionment and moral confusion are inevitable in what Twain helps us realize is a morally inverted society. So when a difficult choice faces him, Huck, as only a boy can, surrenders himself not to his conscience, a product of his society and era, but to his heart, where he finds a morality informed by his innate human kindness.
Huck’s time at the Grangerford household weakens his deformed conscience by undermining his confidence in the society that molded it. Initially, however, the Grangerfords represent all the attractions that society holds even for an unconventional boy like Huck. The head of the family, the colonel, oversees a large estate with over a hundred slaves, and its material grandeur and the family’s supposed gentility impress our young protagonist. The senseless violence simmering right under this guise of propriety, however, is revealed one day when Buck Grangerford explains that his family is in a feud with a neighboring (and also devoutly Christian) family, the Shepherdsons. No one can remember how or why the feud started. Huck’s stay with the Grangerfords comes to an abrupt end when a gunfight breaks out between the two families that kills young Buck. Huck’s first real-life encounter with death proves a far cry from the flippant conversations about murder Tom Sawyer and his band of robbers had in the beginning of the novel. This is also the first and last time we ever see Huck cry. But, as always, Jim is waiting for Huck by the river, a recurring reminder to both Huck and the reader that there is rhyme, reason, and reassuring predictability to life in a setting governed by natural law. In comparison to the river’s simplicity, it becomes all the more clear that the Grangerfords and the society they lived in were a bundle of contradictions. “There warn’t no home like a raft, after all.”[2]
Huck’s hatred for seeing others hurt reveals not only his distaste for violence, but also a true dedication to personal relationships that is essential in shaping his good heart. This dedication becomes evident during Huck’s time at the Wilkses’, where Huck finds that he can no longer tolerate the dauphin and the king’s antics. Though a liar and a thief at times himself, Huck knows petty consequences from real ones, and cannot bear to see the orphaned Wilks sisters cheated out of their inheritance. After some deliberation, he hides the Wilkses’ money and reveals to Mary Jane the true nature of the two scammers. But what drives Huck to make this selfless choice is less his sense of righteousness than his deep admiration for Mary Jane. “In my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see… If ever I’d a thought it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn’t a done it or bust,”[3] says Huck, in his usual self-deprecating manner. Although Huck is younger than Mary Jane, he views her as a symbol of innocence, and wants to protect that innocence. Perhaps Huck sees in Mary Jane what he himself had before he became privy to the world’s darker secrets—both a good heart and a good conscience, or an immediate readiness to do the right thing.
The sad truth at the center of Twain’s social commentary is that society and human nature have diverged to such an extent as to be fundamentally incompatible. So when Huck considers the choice before him at the end of the novel, he resignedly says, “I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things”[4]—between the river and the shore, or correspondingly nature and society. Huck’s deformed conscience tells him that his choice to help Jim to freedom is the choice of a fallen boy. But in the reader’s eyes, Huck embodies the innocence Twain believes we are all born with—and which only the truly good amongst us retain.
[1] Chapter XXX, pg. 162
[2] Chapter XVIII, pg. 88
[3] Chapter XXVIII, pg. 145
[4] Chapter XXXI, pg. 161