The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is about the great adventures that Huck Finn lives with his slave Jim on the Missouri River. The story tells not only about Huck's adventures, but also a deeper understanding of the society in which he lives. Twain had Huck born into a low-class white society; his father was a drunken bum and his mother was dead. He was adopted by the widow Douglas who tried to teach him the morals, ethics and good manners she believed were appropriate in a civilized society. Huck never cared about these values and ran away to get rid of them. During Huck's adventure with Jim he unconsciously realized that he does not agree with society's values and may have his own moral assumptions and values. Twain uses this realization to show how the civilized and morally correct social values introduced to Huck were now civilized and morally contradictory values, so that Huck alienated himself from society and revealed the hypocrisy of society's values. Twain uses the morals of the Widow Douglas to ensure Huck's understanding of how contradictory these morals really are. “The Widow Douglas took me for her son, and suffered to debase me” (Twain 1). From this quote it emerges that the Widow Douglas sincerely believed that her moral values were correct and civilized morality. But it wasn't just the Widow Douglas who taught Huck, her sister, Mrs. Watson, taught Huck the ideas of Christianity and also read Bible stories to him. They both tried to ensure that Huck transformed into what they believed was the civilized, religiously correct human being. “Very soon I wanted to smoke and asked the widow to let me. But he wouldn't. He said it was a mean practice and wasn't c...half of paper...for him as a person. Then he finally thought about how Jim called him darling and how Jim was all he had. “I took it and held it in my hand. I was trembling because I had to decide, forever, between two things, and I knew it. I study a minute, hold my breath, and then I say to myself, “All right, then I'll go to hell” – and I tear it up” (Twain 210). This moment was the biggest turning point of the book. Mark Twain throughout the book showed Huckleberry Finns personal growth on how he started from the bottom as a lonely, racist, immature boy who knew nothing to the point he is at now, finally breaking away from the rules of society. values that were taught to him at the beginning. He alienated himself from that society and revealed how these values were actually hypocritical. He realized that he can choose his own morals and that the one he chooses is the correct one.
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