Grapes Of Wrath And Huckleberry Finn Essay

A person's morals change over time with economic burdens, social struggles, and for political reasons. In different situations a person is going to adjust accordingly. In the novels The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain the two protagonists, Tom Joad and Huckleberry Finn their morals changed with certain circumstances they were put in and were not influenced by the law itself. Throughout each one of the books all of the characters showed growth and developed in three main areas socially, politically, economically, and with family. In The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad goes through many obstacles that challenge him in social situations as does Huck Finn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Social classes are a large part of The Grapes of Wrath and slavery has a lot of influence on society in The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn. Tom Joad and Huck Finn both had to break the social laws in order to uphold their morals. When Tom takes over for Jim Casey as the organizer of the migrant worker's law enforcement saw him as a threat to society, but he did it because he felt it was the right thing to do (495 Steinbeck). Huck Finn also challenged the social norm by protecting
Being together is the most important thing for the Joad family as you can tell as time goes on. Ma Joad's goal was to keep everyone together no matter the circumstance and Tom broke his parole to be with his family. Huck's father was abusive and did not see to be caring, but when he went missing his father was out looking for him and never wanted to give up. Everyone's family values trumped the law. In the article "The Immortality of Government: Why You Can't Legislate Morality" it states, "it is important to recognize that the root of determining our own morality lies in the idea of self-ownership (Boesche)." You decide what happiness with your life and lot the government no matter what the consequence