HUCK FINN

Taylor Hardman

Period 3

Huck Finn Antic. Guide

11-29-10

HUMANS

Personally, I truly despise humans, for the very reason which I am being an example of. I hate the fact that it is possible for us to feel such negative feelings like hate, and jealousy and greed. I hate the very nature of humans. We destroy the insides of our own kind just to get a sense revenge. Humans….are….DISGUSTING! This has been shown to me again in Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

Two characters known as: “The Duke” and “The King” run around to various town conning and scamming people out of their money. In chapter 21, The King and the Duke are putting on a fake play just to scam people out of their money. They combine all these lines from different Shakespeare plays to make one big giant lie. Then again they put on a different “play” to get money for doing nothing. Not to mention the hook they use to get people to come to see it: “Not for Women and Children” showing how awful humans can be and that they most certainly do not always strive to do the “right thing”.

Another example that Mark Twain provides us with, is the fact that even though Tom Sawyer is confronted to do the right thing in chapter 34, when Huck tells him about trying to free the runaway slave, Jim, Tom jumps right in and tells Huck that he would be more than happy to assist him, and just for the sake of a mere adventure. Even though Tom knows that to do so would be against the law, against his relatives, and against everything he's been taught, he is willing to cause tons of trouble just to have a little fun, showing us that many humans wouldn't think twice but to satisfy their own selfishness.

On the other side of the coin, the coincidentally more shadowed side (haha? Other side of the coin? Side that's in the dark? Punny? Haha?........Oh alright) Huckleberry Finn is a much more developed, inner-thinking character that Twain has produced. In chapter ___, Huck is confronted with an inner conflict: he's been taught that freeing a slave is wrong and that slaves are pretty much just things that don't matter that much, but at this point he is starting to recognize Jim as being not so much a beast of labor, but as more of a human that thinks and feels just like himself. So he must decide to do either the “right” thing, and turn Jim in, to the Widow Douglas, or he can do the right thing and do what he feels to be correct and go to free Jim. Although one may think that this is just another selfish choice, doing what HE wants to do, the difference between this and all the other choices that I have brought forward, is that Huck is willing to “go to hell” to do it, he is willing to sacrifice the “gain that he would get” to do what he feels is right.

Even though I have said things that would contradict my first opinion that I have stated, I still believe that humans are scum deep within. I believe that Huck was a naive little boy who had no real sense of right and wrong he just went with what he felt that he wanted. He got his sense of right vs. wrong with what he had been taught. For example, when he says that humans can be awful cruel to one another as he saw the townsfolk carrying off the duke and dauphin, he only knew that was wrong because he had been taught that hurting others humans was bad.

As I have said before: I believe HUMANS...ARE...DISGUSTING.....>=/......=)