Huck Finn

Sivilization

Mark Twain, born in an era where enslaving Americans was the acceptable thing to do, wrote the most eye opening book of the time in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain’s masterpiece was able to show how the society we live in is hypocritical, controlling, and takes away our freedom through specific situations that the protagonist must overcome.

In chapter 1 of Mark Twain’s classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn gripes about the Widow Douglas’s and Miss Watson’s attempts to “sivilize” him. After an hour of Miss Watson drilling Huck about his fidgety behavior during a spelling lesson Huck explains, “Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad, then, but I didn’t mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn’t particular,”(Twain 2). Huck does not want to be “sivilized” because he believes that society is dull and boring. Twain ues the word ‘change’ to represent that rather than becoming complacent of where he is he’d rather go to the ‘bad place’, hell, that everyone believes to be awful. Huck wants to be his own person, he wants to “go somewheres” to be create his own life instead of living through society norms. No one is free if they are part of society because in societies people are expected to do mundane things like take spelling lessons rather than explore things like the “bad place”. Mark Twain shows that we are not free in a society why he “had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals,”(Twain 2). In this excerpt Huck wonders why people must say words to someone who isn’t real before they are allowed to eat. Huck does not want to follow the customs that normal people adhere to in a society. He does not want to become “sivilized” because it will limit the amount of freedom he has. Huck wants the liberty to do what he wants instead of confining himself to what society finds acceptable.

In the time period in which Twain wrote this novel, there were many situations in which society can be hypocritical. After hearing about the long-standing, violent feud between the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords, Huck relates a story about going to church the following Sunday, “The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching--all about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good sermon, and they all talked over it going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith, and good works, and free grace, and preforeordestination, and I don’t know what all, that it did seem to me to be the one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet”(Twain 109). The quote suggests that Huck views a “civilized” society as dull and uneventful. When talking about the church he says it's “pretty ornery preaching” and describes it as “[tiresome]”, showing that the norms of of the church and of society are unappealing to him. The basis of Huck’s Sunday proves that society is hypocritical. The two families go to church in the morning and talk about “brotherly love” and proceed to express how great the sermon was, but in the same day decide to have a shootout causing multiple deaths for both families. In their society it is okay to be hypocritical about their beliefs, they seem to not care about the holy Sabbath day and instead defile it by spilling each other's blood over a “long-standing” feud which the reason for has been long forgotten. Huck chooses to do what society tells him is wrong, he apologizes to Jim, a black slave. Huck and Jim had been stuck with each other for a while. They’ve grown closer and closer as a runaway duo becoming bonded friends. One day Huck decides to mess with Jim a little bit too much and hurt his feelings. Huck wants to apologize, to a black slave, so “it was fifteen minutes before I Could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterward, neither”(Twain 86). Huck does not believe in the idea that a person should