Life Lessons in "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"

Throughout a person’s life, they learn many lessons. This begins early in childhood and continues throughout our lives. However, people are most impressionable and most receptive as a child because they are still innocent.

Life Lessons by Huckleberry Finn

In the novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain, Huck Finn learns many life lessons including how to respect people, how to appreciate the beauty of nature, how people can be cruel and how even his drunk father who abused him loved him in the end.

The first lesson that Huck learned was to appreciate the beauty in nature. During their trip, Huck Finn and Jim were on the river and they were watching nature; Huck Finn learned that nature is very relaxing and beautiful.

Another lesson that Huck learned along the way was that people can be much meaner than he imagined. “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another” (Twain). Huck Finn and Jim, a slave, stopped at a farm to get something to eat because they still had not eaten.

They wanted to get some eggs; they failed in their attempt. When they came back to their boat, they saw that someone was on their boat. They wanted to ask them to leave but they had food. Huck Finn was very hungry and so was Jim. They accepted their offer. The two men changed Huck Finn’s destination. They went to a village where they lied to everyone and said that they were two uncles from England and that they were there to visit Mary Jane.

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When they came to Mary Jane, she thought that they were her uncles from England because she had not seen them for over 28 years. She didn’t know them. They lied to them to get her dad’s money and then tried to escape. They also didn’t have success in escaping thanks to Huck Finn. Huck Finn learns the life lesson of the lengths people will go to accumulate money.

After a few days, Jim and Huck Finn resume their trip. One day they went to an island and they saw a houseboat. Jim went downstairs to inspect the house; he saw Huck Finn’s Pap dead in a room. Huck Finn went downstairs; Jim covered his eyes and did not make Huck Finn watch. In this example, Huck Finn learns the life lesson about the corruption of human nature.

When Huck was saved from a dog by Grangerford, they became friends. When he stayed with Buck’s family, he thought that living with them would be the best thing to do because he would be eating delicious plates and having a good friend. One day Buck’s friends shot at Shepherdson and Huck did not understand why his friends wanted to kill someone. After this occurred, Buck explained to Huck that Shepherdson was his family’s enemy. When Buck was murdered, Huck decided to hide in the tree. During the night, he climbs down and looks for Jim. When he found him, Jim was very happy to see him and they both decided that the best thing to do is go to the boat and continue with the trip. Huck Finn learns that violence only creates more hate and violence.

As the trip continued, they lay down in the boat and they were looking up to the stars Jim says, “Stars and shadows isn’t good to see by” (Twain). This is another example of Huck appreciating the beauty of nature; Huck also learns that he and Jim were free from hypocrisy and injustice.

Learning Respect

When Huck was playing a joke on Jim and treating him like a slave, Jim taught him to care about other people. Thanks to Jim, Huck apologizes to him for the first time and this was his first time to apologize to a slave and to have respect for them. Huck learns to have responsibility and to respect everyone even if they are slaves.

Huck Finn’s Pap was a very bad example for Huck because he was always drunk and abusive to him. His Pap didn’t want him to get an education his Pap’s and wanted him to learn how to steal and do bad things “What is the use of learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and isn’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same” (Twain). After Pap abused him several times, Huck Finn planned his death to escape from his father. The next day when his father woke up, his son was not there, and he saw his hat in the river. He began to scream and called him “honey” for the first time and Huck finally has a good image of his father. Through this experience, Huck learns about love.

Huck brought Jim along on the trip because he wanted to have company but during the trip he changes his mind. By the end of the novel, Huck grows to appreciate Jim and empathizes with how he has been treated as a slave. He even lied to other people to protect Jim by saying that he was not a slave. Even when Jim was taken, Huck Finn planned an escape for Jim in which he was successful and let him free. In this example, Huck Finn learns morals about what is right and wrong not just socially acceptable.

It is very important to learn these life lessons and it is better to learn them early. The sooner a person realizes what life is all about then the sooner they can learn how to handle problems and how to be successful. Huck Finn was the perfect age to begin learning these many important life lessons and these lessons changed him for the better.