The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn In the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck struggles to figure out for himself what is right and what is wrong about race and slavery. During his journey with Jim, he discovers that what people have always taught him may not be the right thing. His entire life he was taught that slaves were property and most people neglected to recognize that they are human beings with families, thoughts and feelings. During this time period, it was socially acceptable to view slaves as property and not real people because for many they did the work that others did not want to do. When Huck discovers that Jim has run away, he is faced with the dilemma of whether to report him, which is what he has been taught is the right thing to do, or whether he should help Jim on his journey to freedom. Huck's attitude changes towards Jim and shows the potential to become more accepting of the race as a whole. Some may argue that this is not true and argue that her opinion of African Americans has not changed and her opinion of Jim has only changed because she has gotten to know him better. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Huck was born and raised in the Southern United States during a time when slavery was at its highest and it seemed like everyone owned slaves. The women by whom he was raised continually tried to "civilize" him because they said that his unruly ways were inappropriate for a boy of his age; Huck does what he wants, without caring what others think of him. At the beginning of the book, Huck considered slavery to be a normal part of life, never stopping to consider the immorality of American practices. However, everything changes when Huck runs into Jim on an island where they are both seeking refuge from something they are fleeing from. When Huck discovers that Jim has run away from Mrs. Watson, one of the women who care for Huck, his conscience immediately takes over and he thinks he must return Jim to his owner. However, once Huck discovers that she would sell Jim for $800 and separate him from his family so he could be sent to a plantation in the Deep South, Huck decides to help Jim on his journey to freedom (8:37 -38). He thinks about how people would look down on him for helping a slave escape, society had always taught him that this would be considered theft of someone's property. Huck decides that breaking the rules doesn't bother him and that he will help Jim on his journey to freedom. During this trip, he takes precautionary measures to protect himself and Jim, such as dressing as a girl to try to get information about whether people are looking for Jim or not. When Huck begins talking to a woman he meets when he is in town, he discovers valuable information that is vital to Jim's safety. “Them niggers ran away the same night Huck Finn was killed. So there is a reward for him: three hundred dollars…” (11:48). If Huck hadn't sneaked into town, he wouldn't have known that people were looking for Jim and that there was such a great reward for the person who found him. Although the change is subtle, Huck begins to show changes in his attitude towards Jim. Huck no longer worries only about his own safety, but also about Jim's. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have risked going to town to get information. A major turning point in the story is when Huck and Jim are separated in the fog. When they finally reunite, Huck plays a prank on Jim and tells him he wasonly a dream and that in reality they had never been separated. This point in the story is incredibly important to the change in Huck's attitude because Huck sees that Jim was worried about him when they separated. Huck only invents the dream because he doesn't want to deal with the emotions of both himself and Jim after being separated. I don't think he wants to admit it, but he cares about Jim and has a hard time showing it because this was such a new idea to him at the time. By lying, he is avoiding expressing his relief that he and Jim are reunited and that he is safe. However, Jim realizes that Huck lied to him and is visibly hurt by it; Huck immediately feels terrible for lying to Jim. “He made me feel so bad I could almost kiss his foot to get him to take it back. It took almost fifteen minutes before I could convince myself to humiliate myself into a ***** - but I did it...” (15:73). Huck proceeds to explain how he would never have lied to Jim if he knew it would hurt him. This is the first time Huck truly sees that slaves have feelings too and that they can be more than just physically hurt by a whip. Up until this point, society had taught Huck that slaves were property, which dehumanizes them and strips them of any trace of emotion. Slowly, Huck realizes that Jim has feelings too, and they can be hurt just as easily as he can. At the end of Huck's adventure with Jim, he has decided that he has had enough of civilization and does not want to follow the social rules he has been taught. Huck was able to achieve something that even today people struggle with. Some people might argue that Huck's attitude towards slaves has not changed and that he sympathizes with Jim only because he has known him. Up until chapter thirty-one, Huck's guilty conscience is something that bothers him because society would tell him that what he is doing is wrong. She worries about doing the morally incorrect thing in many situations because she's no longer casually dating Jim, she's helping him escape from Mrs. Watson. “My conscience began to agitate me more strongly than ever, until at last I said to it: 'Let me go, it is not yet too late, I will go ashore at first light and say.' I felt comfortable, happy and light as a feather straight away. All my problems were gone. (4.75pm). Huck had secretly decided that he would report Jim because what he was doing was not what society thought was right. He knew he would be in a lot of trouble if anyone found out what he had done. So, Huck began to listen to his conscience and began rowing to shore not soon after. However, something Jim says about Huck being the only white man to ever keep a promise stops him and he wonders what the morally right thing to do is. This shows that Huck has actually changed his attitude towards Jim and in time he may change his attitude towards other black people. At the end of their adventure, Huck once again reflects on what society believes is the right thing to do. He writes a letter to Mrs. Watson telling her where Jim is and hopes that perhaps everything can go back to the way it was before Huck's great adventure. However, he realizes that it is not the morally right thing to do and tears up the letter saying: “Okay then, I will go to hell” (31.179). Finally resisting society's last shred of guilty conscience, Huck is able to see that all this time he had been wrong to think that slaves were merely property. Now, after her adventure with Jim, she sees that I'm much more than that. Jim filled the void left by his parents..