After writing note to Miss. Watson:
“I felt so good and all washed clean of sin for the first
time I had ever felt so in my life and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t
do I straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking – thinking how
good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going
to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river…
‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’ – and tore it up.” (Twain 227-228)
Huck’s
inner struggle over his situation with Jim rises to the surface beginning on
page 226 and culminating on 228. He’s in a scenario now where he lost Jim and
knows that he’s been captured by people bent on selling him further down the
river. He believes that Jim would be better off if he was a slave back with Miss Watson if he had to be a slave anywhere, so he decides to write a letter to her
directing her to Jim. He begins to think of their adventures together and
reflects on all of the good times and positive characteristics Jim possesses,
while failing to formulate any sort of list of negative situations with the
man.
This
scene is crucial to Huck’s development. Earlier in Chapter 16, Huck is seconds
away from paddling ashore to tell someone Jim is a runaway slave, only to have
his mind changed when Jim conveniently calls him his best friend. “I was
paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed
to kind of take the tuck all out of me.” The only reason he wanted to tell on
him was because he still viewed Jim as Miss Watson’s property. “Conscience says
to me, ‘What had poor Miss Watson done to you, that you could see her nigger go
off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old
woman do to you, that you could ever treat her so mean.” Even in this internal
battle, the side of Huck that wants to write the letter, or bail on Jim, is
only interested in doing so to make right his wrong towards Miss Watson of
stealing her property. This occurrence along with a few others shows that Huck is
down deep a do gooder. He’s not trying to rid himself of Jim because he’s a
slave, he’s trying to return property. He’s also not trying to help Jim to
spite Miss Watson, he’s trying to help his friend. It’s interesting though that
he views the two as good and evil saying he’s going to hell for helping this
slave escape. It seems like Huck is treating his old, ‘sivilized’ life as one
that will lead him to heaven, while condemning the moral philosophies he has
learned on his adventures as bad or worthy of going to hell.
It
would seem then Huck doesn’t put much faith in his perception of heaven. That
back side quest has long been developing throughout these pages as well. He
seems to hold what Miss Watson says very close to him, but isn’t afraid to
challenge her teachings when the situation and his feelings tell him otherwise.
I think this makes Huck an incredibly relatable character and because you know
he wants to do the right thing, but has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on
the other, this scene where he debates with himself comes off incredibly
powerful. Which way is he going to side? He seems to be running the path of a ‘damned’
soul, but he’s good deep down so maybe he’ll still come back to Jim even after
he writes the note. And sure enough he did. This scene builds formidable suspense
and depicts one of the, if not the, biggest moral dilemmas Huck will face.
I like how you describe Huck as a 'do gooder', but I question this because is it really a good thing that he still feels bad for taking Miss Watson's property. In doing so, he still sees Jim as property at this point, and not fully as a human being. We like to think Huck is doing this because of what he sees as doing the right thing, but we have to take a step back and think about whether this is really a morally 'good' act. The fact that he doesn't turn Jim in says something about Huck's character, but there's still that underlying conscience of falling into 'siviled' ways of thinking at this point.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the novel I have question the idea of Huck's morality, and whether his relationship up with Jim is an adventure and will end when reality sets back in or if its a true friendship and when they return to reality. As a reader, my take on the idea of a "do gooder" is someone that sacrifice their reputation, and possibly to help someone else. In this story Huck is portrayed as a "do gooder" but he hasn't had to sacrifice his reputation or anything to stand up for Jim yet! he has been on the river on the way to "freedom", but when they are forced to re-join "sivilization" the question that is asked is will Huck stay by Jim's side?
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