Free Essay on Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Cruelness :: Adventures Huckleberry Huck Finn Essays

Cruelness in Adventures Of Huck Finn Throughout the tale of Huckleberry Finn as told by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), almost every character for his or her own reasons lies. This can be considered a commentary on the morality and ethics of man kind by Mr. Clemens. Almost no person exists that has never uttered at lease one untruth. That is one of the wonderful things about this novel. It closely mimics real life. There are characters that lie for personal gain. There are also those that lie only in hopes of helping others. Though both are lies, one can be considered courteous or even heroic at times, where the other can only appear greedy and wrong no matter what light it is viewed in. Mark Twain often uses the river to denote freedom and purity, however just as many lies are told on the river as off. This is because Twain doesn't make the assumption that all lies are wicked, and can thus attach them to his symbol of pure good. Practically every "good" character in Huckleberry Finn lies. Huck himself lies on almost countless occasions. Miss Watson lies on at least one occasion. Jim tells several lies during the tale. Tom Sawyer is practically unable to speak the truth. Yet none of these characters are seen as morally corrupt. The villainous characters lie on a constant basis in the course of the story. The king makes lying an art at times, while the duke lies without pause for his entire appearance in the story. Pap makes up numerous tales during his time in the book. All these characters are considered evil and wrongdoers. The difference is the fact that the latter characters lie in hopes of personal gain, while the first characters lie to help others, or in order to entertain. Nearly every character lies in Huckleberry Finn; it is their motivation for their lies that defines their character to the reader. Huckleberry himself tells many a lie during the story. Perhaps his biggest lie is when he fakes his own death, and makes the whole town look for hi s "dead carcass" (Clemens 32). This caused the widow and Miss Watson a terrible amount of heartache and concern.