Huck finn Essay Exam

Bednarski 1
Ryan Bednarski

Mr. Hughes

English 10 2nd hour
31 October 2007
Huck’s Moral Dilemma’s
A moral dilemma that Huck faces is taking Jim, a runaway slave with him along his journey. He meets Jim on the island that he comes upon and they get to know each and how they both escaped. Jim tells Huck “Well, I b’lieve you, Huck. I-I run off.” They become friends after a somewhat short time to get to know each other and quickly decide to go together.

Huck made the decision to go along with him quickly with little thought, and this may come back to hurt him in the end. Huck knows that this is not legally the right thing to do and he may have been hesitant, and later in the book he has thoughts like “What has poor Miss Watson ever done to deserve this”. He feels bad about helping Jim escape because he has to lie to many people along his journey in order to cover up the fact that he is with a run away slave. All the lying and covering himself up catches up to him mentally and he feels bad about his decision sometimes.

Huck did the right thing in taking Jim along with him. Sure, it is against the law, but the law is not always right. He knows that he can be caught and he knows the consequences, but that doesn’t over weigh helping out a friend in the eyes of Huck. Besides, Jim would have a much better chance is he goes with Huck because there is a search party for Jim and Huck and they most certainly would have been caught if they didn’t run away together. Huck comes back as quick as he can and tells Jim “Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain’t a minute to lose. They’re after us!”

Jim is always giving Huck insightful advice throughout their adventure, although Huck does not always take the advice the right way and goes off to do his own thing. He realizes that Jim is pretty smart for who he is, and that it was a good thing that he brought him along. For example, Jim decides to stay back while Huck goes aboard the wrecked steam boat that leads them into a tight situation that they both narrowly escape. Jim says “I doan’ want to go fool’n ‘long er no wrack. Wes doin’ blame’ well, en we better let blame’ well alone, as de good book says. Like as not dey’s a watchman on dat wrack” Jim also does little things to help them along the way such as finding the raft and repairing it so they are able to move on from the Grangerford’s house.

All in all, I believe that, Huck definitively made the right decision to take Jim with him, because he helps out a great amount more than he hurts them during their journey.