Morality In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” -Twain Twain, despite being born and raised in the deep Southern atmosphere of the mid 1800s, was strongly against the way the society around him had become, in its corrupt ways of inequality and hatred amongst each other, and dedicated his writing to the act of countering such tyranny. In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, the reader is taken on an adventure with the young Southern boy, Huck Finn, on adventures down the Mississippi River and is able to see all aspects of life at this time. The book is disguised as an adventure novel, but the true intention of the novel was for the author to criticize the unscrupulous hierarchy and to subtly show them the wrong in
The novel would have never come to be if it had not been for the actions taken by the people of this deranged society that would lead to a world where not all men are created equal, abuse of all kinds are acceptable, and the concept of morality is but a subject of fiction. An example of this starts at the time when Huck and the two fugitives were receding at the home of Mary Jane and her siblings, and Huck mentions that “When it was all done me and the hare-lip had a supper in the kitchen off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up the things” (172). This standard American family, fairly wealthy and pure of heart, would not allow their own family member to eat at the table with the rest for a physical disability she was born with. And to add on to the true indecency of the situation, nobody says a word except for Huck. This is normal, traditional behavior for the community, and this kind of segregation is perfectly acceptable to the tainted minds of this society. Another situation which perfectly demonstrates the backwardness of the people’s lives is the Grangerford and Shepardson family feud. There’s a point in Huck’s visit with the Grangerfords when two of the family’s boys are running from the Shepherdsons, they are said to have “Jumped for the river -both of them hurt- and as they swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and singing out ‘Kill them, Kill them!’” (115). The result of the bloodshed was the death of the Buck Grangerford, a lad about the age of Huck who he had befriended. Huck held the boy in his arms as he died. Besides the fact that the utterly ridiculous feud caused the death of a small child with potential to do so much in the world, the true irony of the entire scenario is that the feud would likely go on to continue for the loss of Buck, as though more death would somehow bring him back. And with