Huck and Robinson: Heart and Conscience

February 4, 2003
COM 445
Huck and Robinson: Heart and Conscience

In 1895 while on a lecture tour, Mark Twain stated that the twelve year old protagonist of his controversial novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, suffered from a moral conflict in which a “sound heart and a deformed conscience” collide (cited in Say it, Jim). Perhaps one of the reasons his book is still widely read, taught in schools, discussed and criticized is because Twain’s depiction of this moral conflict, given life through Huck’s colorful cultural language, was so honest. The book brings into question the subjective cultural moral codes that we each build our conscience around and shows us an individual who is willing to dismiss that conscience, at least momentarily, in order to follow his heart-felt instincts. Unlike the popular hero of American fiction who defies society to do what he knows is right and just, Huck does what he believes to be wrong and sinful. Essentially, he is wi...