Honors Novel #1

Because Huck is a child, the world seems extremely new to him. Everything he encounters is an occasion for thought. Because of his background and past life, however, he does more than just apply the rules---he creates his own. Throughout the novel, it's clearly shown that even though Huck is imperfect, he still represents what everyone is capable of becoming: a thinking feeling human being rather than just simply an object in the machine of society.

Huck's youth is an important factor in his moral education over the course of the novel. Sometimes we believe that only a child is open-minded enough to undergo the kind of development that Huck does. Since Huck and Tom are young, their age lends a sense of "play" to their actions, which excuses them in certain ways and also enhances the novel's commentary on slavery and society, helping the reader to get a better understanding of Huck's emvironment and how he adapts and learns from it.

"Tom told me what his plan was, and I see in a minute it was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it."

Ironically, Huck often knows better than Tom and the adults around him, even though he has lacked the guidance that a proper family and community should have offered him. Twain also drew links between Huck’s youth and Jim’s status as a black man: both are vulnerable, yet Huck, because he is white, has power over Jim. But being the kind of thinker that Huck is, he doesn't let that known fact get in the way of helping Jim. In this quotation from Chapter 34, we see Huck once again swayed by his friend Tom. Although in practical terms it would be quite simple to break Jim out of the shed, Tom insists on a more complicated plan with “style.” Huck could've just simply argued with Tom to try and get his point across that Tom's plan was not a good idea and that it was an easier way to help Jim, but instead he just went along with Tom's idea to keep down confusion.

By focusing on Huck’s education, Twain was able to help the reader gain a better understanding of Huck as a person and how is process of thinking works. As a poor, uneducated boy, or orphan, Huck withdraws his trust from the morals and precepts of the society that treats him as an outcast and fails to protect him from abuse. This conclusion about society, and his growing relationship with Jim, lead Huck to question many of the teachings that he has received, especially regarding race and slavery. More than once, Huck chose to “go to hell” rather than go along with the rules and follow what he has been taught. Huck bases these decisions on his experiences, his own sense of logic, and what his developing conscience tells him. On the raft, away from civilization, Huck is especially free from society’s rules, able to make his own decisions without any restrictions.

By the end of the novel, Huck learned to “read” the world around him, to distinguish good, bad, right, wrong, menace, friend, and so on. His moral development is sharply contrasted to the character of Tom Sawyer, who is influenced by a crazy mix of adventure novels and Sunday-school teachings, which he combines to influence and help his outrageous and potentially harmful escapades. Luckily, Huck was strong enough t0 look beyond Tom's selfish and confused way of thinking and living, and act in a way that took him from being the object in the machine of society that depended and waited on the macine to help him, to the machine that helped the rest of the incoming objects.