Essay/Term paper: Huck finn's contradiction

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Huckleberry Finn

Huck's Contradiction



In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Huck was a boy who
thought very little of himself, but had a huge impact on others. His moral standing was
based on what is easier, right or wrong. He lived the way he wanted to live, and no one
told him otherwise. He had the adventure of a lifetime, and yet he learned along the way.
Although Huck has certain beliefs about himself, his actions and decisions contradict
these beliefs.
Huck may consider himself lazy, but in reality, he is a very hard worker. At one
point, Huck wants to get away from his father so he comes up with a scheme to fake his
death and escape from his cabin: "I out with my saw and went to work on that log
again. I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid and shoved
the vines and branches apart and put it in. I had wore the ground a good deal, crawling
out of the hole and dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from
the outside. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place. I took the ax and
smashed in the door-I beat it and hacked it considerable, a-doing it. I fetched the
pig.and laid him down on the ground to bleed. Well, last I pulled out some of my hair,
and bloodied the ax good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the ax in the corner"
(24). If Huck were lazy, he would not have gone through all that trouble to escape, if he
escaped at all. A lazy person would have just stayed there and not worried about what
happened. At another point in the novel, Huck and a runaway slave, Jim, are on an island
where they think they will not get caught. Huck decides to go to town to get information
dressed as a girl. "So we shortened up one of the calico gowns and I turned up my
trouser-legs to my knees and got into it. I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my
chin. I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things, and by-and-by I could do
pretty well in them" (41). If Huck was even remotely lazy he would have just stayed on
the island and enjoyed the freedom. His going to town as a girl shows that he will do
anything to get what he wants, whereas a lazy person would try to take the easy route. A
third time Huck shows that he is not lazy is when he and two scoundrels, the King and the
Duke, are staying with the daughters of a recently deceased man. The King and the Duke
are trying to get the dead man's assets by pretending to be his brothers. Huck goes
through a lot of work to make sure the girls get to keep their money: "So, thinks I, I'll go
search their rooms. So then I went to his room and begun to paw around there. But I
couldn't do nothing without a candle, and I dasn't light one. So I judged I'd got to.lay
and eavesdrop. I had it before they was half-way down the stairs. the only place I see
to hide the bag was in the coffin. when we get down the river a hundred mile or two, I
could write back to Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it" (133-135). If
Huck was lazy, he would have just sit by and let the King and Duke rip the girls off. But,
instead, he chose the hard work of getting the money to the girls. Because of Huck's hard
work throughout his adventure, he contradicts his beliefs that he is lazy, but this is not the
only contradiction within him.
Huck also thinks he his carefree, but his actions and feelings prove him wrong
again. When Huck and Jim are first starting their adventure together, the come upon a
sinking steam boat with a gang of murders aboard. Huck and Jim end up stranding the
murderers on the sinking ship: "Now was the first time that I had begun to worry about
the men-I reckon I hadn't had time to before. I began to think how dreadful it was, even
for murderers, to be in such a fix," (54). If Huck didn't care, he would have stranded the
murderers on the boat with no remorse or regret, but he did care, even if they were
murderers. Later, Huck couldn't bring himself to turn Jim in to some men he ran across,
and thought to himself: "s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better
than what you do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad-I'd feel just the same way I do now,"
(69). Huck knew it would be the right thing to turn Jim in, but he couldn't, because he
cared about Jim and what happened to him. Then Jim and Huck get separated, and Huck
stays with the Grangerford family who are in the middle of a feud with another family. A
boy, Buck Grangerford, gets to know Huck, but is then killed by the feud and Huck finds
him. "I cried a little when I was covering up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me,"
(87). Huck again proves that he cares about other people, and if they die, he feels
remorse, just like any other person who cares. Afterward, Huck and Jim meet up again,
and find two men who are running from a mob claiming they didn't do anything. "They
was pretty close to me then, and sung out and begged me to save their lives. `take to the
water and wade down to me and get in.,'" (90-91). If Huck was carefree, like he says,
he wouldn't have cared about the two men's trouble and wouldn't have let them join
Huck and Jim. But, Huck did care, and helped the men escape. Next the two men Huck
helped escape, the King and Duke, were trying to rob three girls out of their inheritance.
Huck thinks: "I says to myself, this is a girl that I'm letting that old reptle rob her of her
money!. Says I to myself, and this is another one that I'm letting him rob her of her
money!" (132). Huck realizes that he cares about these girls and he won't stand for them
getting ripped off. Following that incident, Huck gets separated from the King and Duke,
but learns that a town has found out about their fraudulent ways and goes to warn them.
When he arrives at the town he finds he is too late and that the King and Duke have
already been tarred and feathered. "Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for
them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them
any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human being can be awful cruel to
one another," (174). Subsequently, Huck met up with Tom Sawyer, a friend from before
Huck faked his death. They both try to free Jim from being captured in a shed and Tom
gets shot in the leg. "I told Tom I was agoing for a doctor. He raised considerable row
about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn't budge," (208). Huck cared enough for
Tom to risk getting caught stealing Jim just to make sure Tom was okay. If Huck hadn't
cared about Tom, they could've just left him where he got shot. By Huck caring about all
of these people throughout his adventure, even though some of them didn't care about
him, he contradicts his beliefs again, showing himself to be a much better person than he
thinks he is. This, however, is not the final way he contradicts himself, there is still one
more.
Finally, Huck leads us to believe that he likes to be alone, when in fact he dislikes
it very much. At one time during Jim and Huck's journey, fog separates the two
travelers. "If you think it ain't dismal and lonesome out in the fog that way, by yourself,
in the night, you try it once-you'll see," (62). Huck flat out contradicts himself with
this. If he preferred to be alone, he would have liked being separated in the fog, as
opposed to being scared of it. Later, Huck and Jim pick up the King and Duke who join
them in their trip. Huck figured out that they weren't really Kings and Dukes: "If they
wanted us to call them Kings and Dukes, I hadn't no objections, `long as it would keep
peace in the family," (95). By Huck calling their odd group a family, he shows that he is
looking for companionship, and a real family. One like he's never had before. Before
he'd always been alone, so he just thought he liked it. This last contradiction furthers the
idea that Huck's beliefs were dead wrong.
Huck's beliefs about himself, whether it be that he is lazy, careless, or likes to be
alone, are mistaken in that he was shaped by people around him. He had not had time to
develop his own sense of who he really was. Over his voyage, he began to learn that he
wasn't lazy or carefree and that he did, in deed, like company. So, once Huck began to
live on his own, his actions and dialogue contradicted his beliefs about himself. And I
believe they did so for the better.