<3 vs Conscience

“[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is] a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat.”

—Mark Twain, Notebook, 1895.

There is a reason that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is written from the first person point of view. Twain wants the readers to be able to see the thoughts passing through Huck’s mind. He wants the readers to follow Huck’s internal development just as Huck and Jim follow the path of the Mississippi. Huck’s opinion of Jim (as person or property) is constantly changing, flowing back and forth. Huck fights an internal battle between his “deformed conscience,” the view of Jim as property instilled in Huck by society, and his “sound heart,” the view of Jim as a friend, and fellow human being that Huck feels to be true. Though Huck’s heart ultimately triumphs over his social conscience, it is not without much fluctuation, in either direction.

When Huck and Jim first meet on Jackson Island, Huck disregards Jim’s former position as a slave. He sees himself and Jim on equal footing. They’re both runaways trying to find their freedom. In this circumstance, Huck follows what his heart tells him. However, it is not without first acknowledging the voice of society. “People will call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum,” he says to Jim before declaring his course of action “…but that don’t make no difference, I ain’t a-going to tell, and I ain’t a-going back there, anyways.” The last phrase of Huck’s statement shows the impact that Huck’s conscience is having on his decision. Huck’s course of action would have been set had he stopped talking after “I ain’t a-going to tell,” but he continues onward to justify his actions saying “I ain’t a-going back there, anyways.” Huck finds the need to validate a decision that he was free to make. Though he makes his own independent decision, this act of validation shows that he is, in reality, not completely free but still being influenced by the opinions of the town.

Later, in the chapter “The Rattlesnake Skin Does Its Work,” Huck’s decision to help Jim is tested. He’s presented with a perfect opportunity to give Jim up, two slave hunters ask to inspect his boat where Jim is hiding. Huck again finds himself torn between what he thinks would be right by society’s standards and what would be right in his own mind. He doesn’t give up Jim but ultimately assesses the situation as a loose-loose scenario. He asks 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.” Huck directly states that he believes that giving Jim up would have been the “right” thing to do. Again, Huck is torn between what his conscious says and what he wants to do in his heart. This particular encounter shows the degree to which Huck was in conflict with himself. He is so equally split that neither side makes him feel better than the other; both feel equally bad. However, despite the apparent equilibrium, Huck again chooses to act with his heart.

The moral climax of the novel comes in the form of a reversal. After the Wilks incident, Huck’s “conscience [gets] to grinding” him and he realizes that he’s “stolen” from Miss Watson. He feels like he has committed a crime against a kind old lady, and a friend of his, and he aims to correct it. After Huck writes Miss Watson a letter explaining the situation, it seems like Huck’s conscience has finally beat over his heart. However, this is not the case, and in a dramatic reversal Huck cannot find a reason to crush Jim’s dreams of freedom and he declares “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” and he tears up the note. In one motion Huck rejects both the societal belief in slaves as property as well as the religious belief in the need for salvation and paradise. He acknowledges a belief in hell but decides that he’s rather make his own personal decisions than listen to a conscience that has been molded by the public.

Huck was never a proper member of society and never will be. This is why he sets out West at the end of the novel instead of returning to the South. He and Paw have never completely belonged in town. They’re outsiders. The difference between the two of them is that Paw wants to be on the inside, and Huck never can seem to find that desire. He is independent. He knows that the only thing he can completely trust is himself. As an outsider, he’s bound to come in conflict with his own beliefs and what people on the inside of society have told him to believe, but Huck will follow his heart over his conscience every single time, because that is what he knows he can trust. This is what leads Huck and Jim down the river together.