Huck Finn Moral Essay

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and dress up like a girl? That was a good notion, too” (74). Huck wants to go across the river to find out what was going on in town. When Jim suggests that Huck should disguise himself and deceive everyone by dressing up as a girl, Huck agrees to the idea, even saying “that was a good notion”. Huck is aware that he will be lying and deceiving the people on the mainland by dressing up and acting like a girl, but he does not believe that this act of deception is immoral. He agrees to lie about his true identity because it never hurts anybody, and his intention as good as he will still be able to retrieve valuable information. Later in the book, Huck steals a raft from two robbers on a steamboat, leaving them with no means of escaping. Huck feels guilty for leaving the robbers to die: “Now was the first time that I begun to worry about the men – I reckon I hadn’t had time before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murders, to be in a fix. I say to myself, there ain’t no ...

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decides whether or not he should return Jim to his owner, he encounters two men, who want to search his raft for run-away slaves. Huck cleverly lies to deter the men from searching his raft. After successfully averting the men from finding Jim, Huck thinks about the morality of his lie:
They went off, and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t no use for me to try to learn to do right…. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on – spose you’d a done right and give Jim up; would you feel better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad… (104).
Although Huck never comes to a full conclusion whether his ...

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