Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" In Mark
Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", Huck was a boy who
thought very little of himself, but had a huge impact on others. His
moral standing was based on what is easier, right or wrong. He lived
the way he wanted to live, and no one told him otherwise. He had the
adventure of a lifetime, and yet he learned along the way. Although
Huck has certain beliefs about himself, his actions and decisions
contradict these beliefs. Huck may consider himself lazy, but in
reality, he is a very hard worker. At one point, Huck wants to get away
from his father so he comes up with a scheme to fake his death and
escape from his cabin: "I out with my saw and went to work on that log
again. I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid
and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in. I had wore the
ground a good deal, crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many
things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside. Then I
fixed the piece of log back into its place. I took the ax and smashed in
the door-I beat it and hacked it considerable, a-doing it. I fetched the
pig.and laid him down on the ground to bleed. Well, last I pulled out
some of my hair, and bloodied the ax good, and stuck it on the back
side, and slung the ax in the corner" (24). If Huck were lazy, he would
not have gone through all that trouble to escape, if he escaped at all.
A lazy person would have just stayed there and not worried about what
happened. At another point in the novel, Huck and a runaway slave, Jim,
are on an island where they think they will not get caught. Huck
decides to go to town to get information dressed as a girl. "So we
shortened up one of the calico gowns and I turned up my trouser-legs to
my knees and got into it. I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my
chin. I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things, and
by-and-by I could do pretty well in them" (41). If Huck was even
remotely lazy he would have just stayed on the island and enjoyed the
freedom. His going to town as a girl shows that he will do anything to
get what he wants, whereas a lazy person would try to take the easy route.
A third time Huck shows that he is not lazy is when he and two
scoundrels, the King and the Duke, are staying with the daughters of a
recently deceased man. The King and the Duke are trying to get the dead
man's assets by pretending to be his brothers. Huck goes through a lot
of work to make sure the girls get to keep their money: "So, thinks I,
I'll go search their rooms. So then I went to his room and begun to paw
around there. But I couldn't do nothing without a candle, and I dasn't
light one. So I judged I'd got to.lay and eavesdrop. I had it before
they was half-way down the stairs. the only place I see to hide the bag
was in the coffin. when we get down the river a hundred mile or two, I
could write back to Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it"
(133-135). If Huck was lazy, he would have just sit by and let the King
and Duke rip the girls off. But, instead, he chose the hard work of
getting the money to the girls. Because of Huck's hard work throughout
his adventure, he contradicts his beliefs that he is lazy, but this is not
the only contradiction within him. Huck also thinks he his carefree,
but his actions and feelings prove him wrong again. When Huck and Jim
are first starting their adventure together, the come upon a sinking
steam boat with a gang of murders aboard. Huck and Jim end up stranding
the murderers on the sinking ship: "Now was the first time that I had
begun to worry about the men-I reckon I hadn't had time to before. I
began to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a
fix," (54). If Huck didn't care, he would have stranded the murderers
on the boat with no remorse or regret, but he did care, even if they were
murderers. Later, Huck couldn't bring himself to turn Jim in to some men
he ran across, and thought to himself: "s'pose you'd a done right and
give Jim up; would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I,
I'd feel bad-I'd feel just the same way I do now," (69). Huck knew it
would be the right thing to turn Jim in, but he couldn't, because he
cared about Jim and what happened to him. Then Jim and Huck get
separated, and Huck stays with the Grangerford family who are in the
middle of a feud with another family. A boy, Buck Grangerford, gets to
know Huck, but is then killed by the feud and Huck finds him. "I cried
a little when I was covering up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to
me," (87). Huck again proves that he cares about other people, and if
they die, he feels remorse, just like any other person who cares.
Afterward, Huck and Jim meet up again, and find two men who are running
from a mob claiming they didn't do anything. "They was pretty close to
me then, and sung out and begged me to save their lives. `take to the
water and wade down to me and get in.,'" (90-91). If Huck was carefree,
like he says, he wouldn't have cared about the two men's trouble and
wouldn't have let them join Huck and Jim. But, Huck did care, and
helped the men escape. Next the two men Huck helped escape, the King
and Duke, were trying to rob three girls out of their inheritance. Huck
thinks: "I says to myself, this is a girl that I'm letting that old reptle
rob her of her money!. Says I to myself, and this is another one that
I'm letting him rob her of her money!" (132). Huck realizes that he
cares about these girls and he won't stand for them getting ripped off.
Following that incident, Huck gets separated from the King and Duke, but
learns that a town has found out about their fraudulent ways and goes to
warn them. When he arrives at the town he finds he is too late and that
the King and Duke have already been tarred and feathered. "Well, it
made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals,
it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more
in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human being can be awful
cruel to one another," (174). Subsequently, Huck met up with Tom
Sawyer, a friend from before Huck faked his death. They both try to
free Jim from being captured in a shed and Tom gets shot in the leg. "I
told Tom I was agoing for a doctor. He raised considerable row about
it, but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn't budge," (208). Huck cared
enough for Tom to risk getting caught stealing Jim just to make sure Tom
was okay. If Huck hadn't cared about Tom, they could've just left him
where he got shot. By Huck caring about all of these people throughout
his adventure, even though some of them didn't care about him, he
contradicts his beliefs again, showing himself to be a much better person
than he thinks he is. This, however, is not the final way he
contradicts himself, there is still one more. Finally, Huck leads us
to believe that he likes to be alone, when in fact he dislikes it very
much. At one time during Jim and Huck's journey, fog separates the two
travelers. "If you think it ain't dismal and lonesome out in the fog that
way, by yourself, in the night, you try it once-you'll see," (62). Huck
flat out contradicts himself with this. If he preferred to be alone, he
would have liked being separated in the fog, as opposed to being scared
of it. Later, Huck and Jim pick up the King and Duke who join them in
their trip. Huck figured out that they weren't really Kings and Dukes:
"If they wanted us to call them Kings and Dukes, I hadn't no objections,
`long as it would keep peace in the family," (95). By Huck calling
their odd group a family, he shows that he is looking for companionship,
and a real family. One like he's never had before. Before he'd always
been alone, so he just thought he liked it. This last contradiction
furthers the idea that Huck's beliefs were dead wrong. Huck's beliefs
about himself, whether it be that he is lazy, careless, or likes to be
alone, are mistaken in that he was shaped by people around him. He had
not had time to develop his own sense of who he really was. Over his
voyage, he began to learn that he wasn't lazy or carefree and that he
did, in deed, like company. So, once Huck began to live on his own, his
actions and dialogue contradicted his beliefs about himself. And I
believe they did so for the better.