Huckleberry Finns Journey to Morality Through Societal...

Mark Twain once described his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as â€Å"a struggle between a sound mind and a deformed conscience†. Throughout the novel, Huck wrestles with the disparity between his own developing morality and the twisted conscience of his society. In doing so, he becomes further distanced from society, both physically and mentally, eventually abandoning it in order to journey to the western frontier. By presenting the disgust of Huck, an outsider, at the state of society, Mark Twain is effectively able to critique the intolerance and hypocrisy of the Southern South. In doing so, Twain asserts that in order to exist as a truly moral being, one must escape from the chains of a diseased society. As Huck journeys down†¦show more content†¦The dissection of the immorality of society is further explored in Tom Sawyer’s scheme to free Jim from the Phelpses’ captivity. Tom, seemingly eager to help Jim escape, creates a plan that seems to exist more for his own amusement than for Jim’s emancipation, a plan that eventually ends in Jim’s recapture and Tom’s injury. Thus, Tom’s plan to free Jim takes on a dark irony as Huck says that Tom is â€Å"not mean, but kind†; this is subverted when we discover that Tom has used Jim as a plaything in his game of escape (Evans). Tom and Huck, both boys of about the same age and with similar backgrounds, are a good example of the difference that â€Å"sivilized† society makes on the development of the individual. As Tom and Huck plan Jim’s escape, the two represent very different places in their development as individuals; Huck having discovered a new morality through his journey down the Mississippi, and Tom having remained more or less the same as his introduction at the beginning of the novel. While Huck has demonstrated his ability to more fully realize individuals, notably Jim, Tom has been conditioned by society to see slav es as subhuman, and thus has no problem with using Jim as a plaything in his game of adventure. This trivialization of human life, presented by the â€Å"civilized† and â€Å"kind† Tom, demonstrates the immorality and toxicity of Southern society. Twain also comments on the hypocrisy