Lesson Title: A Sound Heart and a Deformed Conscience

 

By: Carolyn Taylor

 

Burning Question:

Twain once described Huckleberry Finn as a book in which “a sound heart & a deformed conscience come into collision & conscience suffers a defeat.”  How does Huck Finn’s conscience develop and why does is conflict with his heart?  What is Mark Twain saying about human nature and society?

 

Objective/Introduction:

 

Context:

Huck’s conscience is largely a product of his culture and era.  Twain uses Huck to highlight and mirror, and sometimes parody, the attitudes of the 1880s.  He equates Christian charity with hate, murder, deception, confusion, and immorality.  In contrast, Twain idealizes Huck’s innocence, his logical approach to religion, human nature, human kindness and goodness.  Huck, while outwardly representing all that is disapproved of in “good” society, inwardly he is the personification of Twain’s good human being.

 

Materials:

·   Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Puffin Classics). London: Puffin, 2008.

 

Time Span:

Character analysis throughout the novel.

 

Procedures:

·         Look at specific sections of the novel and consider what impact they have on Huck. 

a.       Do events develop his conscience or do they reinforce his sound heart? 

b.      Each selection presents a moral dilemma that Huck faces.  How does he make his decisions? 

c.       Upon what logic, ideal, thoughts, philosophies are his decisions based?  When and how are you like or unlike Huck? 

d.      What decisions do you make based on similar influences?

·         Additionally consider what Twain is indicating to his society and what it says about our society today. Why does this matter?

 

Analyzing the character of Huck in the midst of his moral conflicts can provide readers insights into their own thought processes.  Emphasize that Twain was a master at depicting people, seeing the way people think and act.  He uses his writing to parody, satirize, honor, criticize, and illustrate very “human” characteristics.  Any one of the following quotes could be the subject of a personal essay, a comparison piece, a poem.  Use the “writing-to-learn” process with students to help them discover themselves through the novel and their responses to it.

 

Chapter 1: 

  • Huck and “the bad place.”

All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn’t particular.. . . Well I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no good.

Chapter 3:

  • Huck and Prayer

She told me to pray and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn’t so.

  • Huck and Providence

I judged I could see there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow’s Providence, but if Miss Watson got him there warn’t no help for him anymore.  I thought it all out and reckoned I would belong to the widow’s, if he wanted me, though I couldn’t make out he was agoing to be any better off than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant and so kind of low down and ornery.

  • Huck and Tom’s Lies

I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different.  It had all the marks of a Sunday School.

Chapter 6: 

  • Huck and Pap’s Politics

(Pap) Oh, yes, this is a wonderful government, wonderful . . . and yet’s got to set stock still for six whole months before it can take ahold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted (etc.)

Chapter 8:

  • Huck and Prayer, revisited

And then something struck me.  I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson, or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and done it. So there ain’t no doubt that there is something in that thing.

  • Huck and Jim- Building Trust

Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart.  He said Tom Sawyer couldn’t get up no better plan than what I had . . .  “People would call me a low down Abilitionist and dpise me for keeping mum­—but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t agoing to tell . . ..

Chapter 12:

  • Huck and “Borrowing”

Pap always said it warn’t no harm for borrowing things . . .  but the widow said it warn’t anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it.  Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and Pap was partly right . . ..

Chapter 13:

  • Huck’s Compassion

Now was the first time that I begun to sorry about the men—I reckon I hadn’t time to before.  I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix.

Chapter 14:

  • Huck and Jim and What Makes a Man

(conversation at the end of the chapter)  In this conversation, it is important to emphasize that Jim is trying to reason with a child, Huck.  If the narration were from Jim’s point of view, it would likely show the same frustration, with Huck not realizing that Jim is really talking about men, as a man.

Chapter 15:

  • Huck and Humility

Jim’s narration before this line is significant.

Then he got up slow, and walked to the wigwam, and went in there, without saying anything but that.  But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I would almost kissed his foot to take it back.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself  . . .— but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards neither.

Chapter 16: 

  • Huck and Freedom

Well, I can tell you, it made me all trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was most free—and who was to blame for it? Why, me.  I couldn’t get that out of my conscience, no how, no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn’t rest; I couldn’t stay still in one place. . . ..

 This chapter hits head on the irony of right and wrong, the questions of freedom and slavery and Huck’s confusion about what he is supposed to do.  Here he has to face choices about what he has been taught (conscience) and what he feels is right (heart).   

Chapter 19:

  • Huck and Wisdom

If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.

  • Feuding: What were Huck’s main concerns about the feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons?  What indications of Huck’s philosophy are evident in the narrative?  What comparisons can be drawn between the feuding in Huck’s time and today?
  • The King and The Earl: What roles do these characters play in Huck’s character and moral development?  How do we learn more about Huck through the actions of these characters?  What issues do the different roles of the duke and king bring to the forefront in the novel?  Why are these characters so dominant in the novel?

Chapter 31:

  • Huck’s Resolution

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking-thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time, in the day, and in the nighttime, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating alond, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: "All right, then, I'll go to hell"-and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

Chapters 32- End:

  • Huck and Tom

Contrast the differences between Tom and Huck; between Tom and Jim; between Huck’s behavior with either Jim or Tom. Why does the story end as it does?  What kind of a man is Jim, and how do his heart and conscience operate?  How does Huck model his conscience after or reject the other characters and experiences?  What kind of a man is Huck becoming?  Tom?

  • What is Mark Twain saying about conscience and heart? 
  • How do we, as human beings reconcile the moral and social dilemmas that we face with conscience and heart? 

 Extensions:

Look at the media and other influences in modern society with the class to determine the boundaries of our social norms.  What do we allow to influence us?  Why are we susceptible to advertising, tabloid gossip, sensationalism, religion, peer pressure, parental pressure, guilt, insecurities, etc.  Are there influences we should follow?  How do we determine those?  Are there influences we should ignore?  How do we determine those? What are the consequences for changing our minds?  What implications does changing our mind have for society?  For us personally? Should these questions and answers make a difference?  When do they matter? How do we deal with matters of the heart and conscience?

 

Resources:


 

·         The River’s Sound Heart vs. the Shore’s Deformed Conscience (based on: http://files.lincolnhigh.net/uploads/files/1315.doc.)

Mark Twain called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat." The river and shore symbolize this idea, but the question is HOW?

“Sound heart”= healthy, morally correct soul and instinct

“Deformed conscience”= unhealthy, misshapen sense of morality 

Each of the following is a “River/shore” pair:

  •  Purity of nature versus corruption of civilization/customs rules, religion

  • freedom versus restriction/imprisonment/slavery

  • justice/truth/trust  versus injustice/lies/dishonesty

  • immorality (lying, stealing) for the “right reasons” versus immorality for the wrong reasons

  • honesty versus pretense (phoniness, hypocrisy, scams)

  • innocence/childhood/immaturity versus knowledge/adulthood/ maturity

 

Create a “River and Shore” list. Select examples quoted from the novel Huck Finn of things that happen to Huck on the river and the shore that can be used as EVIDENCE that supports your theory in a way you can explain.  

  • You should have at least two examples of things that happen to Huck on the river and two examples of things that happen to Huck on the shore. Paraphrase or quote the example and include citation.
  • Look at your evidence and try to answer these questions:
  • What is the significant difference between the things you listed on the river side versus the shore side? That is, what qualities or characteristics are common among the things on each side?
  • How do any of the things you listed connect with Huck’s deformed conscience? How do any of the things you listed connect with Huck’s sound heart?
  • What does Huck learn?

Select one of the following questions to answer. Write your response after your theory/evidence explanation section.

  • How do you know that Huck’s deformed conscience has suffered defeat? In other words, what did he learn that makes his “sound heart” win? 
  • How does the meaning of the river and the shore change as they get further south?
  • Are there contradictions? Does the river or shore seem to change meanings at times? How, when, why? For instance the following are in the river but seem different from the raft experience: Jackson Island, the house that floats by in the flood, the Walter Scott Steamboat…?