Huckleberry Finn Religion Essay
For Huckleberry Finn, civilization means more than just clean clothes and the restrictive nature of city life on an adolescent boy. Civilized life is where Huck sees the tendency of human beings to continually impart injustices and inhumane acts on one another, most often sanctioned by religion, and almost always carried out by those who represent Christianity. Those like Miss Watson, the woman in St. Petersburg, the Grangerfords and their murderous feud, all provide Huck with experiences of civility that he comes to understand, or at least witness for the benefit of the reader, as deeply flawed in its cultural beliefs. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain explores religion through the eyes of Huckleberry Finn, who, both consciously
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In certain instances this is what Twain seems to be doing, such as the moment Huck separates his moral conscience from what he was taught through religion. But more predominantly, Twain’s novel utilizes what can be called Huck’s subconscious developments, which delve deeper into the contradictions and flaws of religion. There is a particularly shining moment of this at the end of the novel when Tom Sawyer admits “old Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river, and said so; and she set him free in her will” (299). Miss Watson is the most prominent religious example in the novel, and we realize that practically on her deathbed she has formed a kind of confession of guilt about her actions towards Jim. Confession before death is a way for the sinner to admit guilt in order to receive forgiveness and be allowed into heaven. Huck never truly admits of coming to the realization that slavery, or racism in general, is a bad thing; and this leads to debate and open-ended questions about the intent of the novel. But where Huck is unable to grasp the meaning behind Miss Watson’s change of heart before death, the reader can interpret that it was the novel’s religious matriarch that felt the need to save
In certain instances this is what Twain seems to be doing, such as the moment Huck separates his moral conscience from what he was taught through religion. But more predominantly, Twain’s novel utilizes what can be called Huck’s subconscious developments, which delve deeper into the contradictions and flaws of religion. There is a particularly shining moment of this at the end of the novel when Tom Sawyer admits “old Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river, and said so; and she set him free in her will” (299). Miss Watson is the most prominent religious example in the novel, and we realize that practically on her deathbed she has formed a kind of confession of guilt about her actions towards Jim. Confession before death is a way for the sinner to admit guilt in order to receive forgiveness and be allowed into heaven. Huck never truly admits of coming to the realization that slavery, or racism in general, is a bad thing; and this leads to debate and open-ended questions about the intent of the novel. But where Huck is unable to grasp the meaning behind Miss Watson’s change of heart before death, the reader can interpret that it was the novel’s religious matriarch that felt the need to save