The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn correlates extremely well with novels like Catcher in the Rye in that it illustrates the deep and pervasive difficulties that characters like Huck and Holden must struggle with growing up. In Huck's particular case, he seems, from the beginning, to be conflicted about whether he should conform to social norms or live according to his own preferences: "The widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed it to sivilize me... so when I couldn't take it anymore, I passed away... and I was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer, he tracked me down and told me he was going to start a gang of thieves, and I could do it. join me if I wanted to go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back” (70-71). As this quote reveals, Huck has already made the crucial decision to separate himself from the corruptions he sees in society (e.g. Pap's abusive alcoholism and excessive racism); he thus embarked on the Mississippi River, hoping to leave behind him (perhaps permanently) these societal faults that he had discerned and deemed unacceptable. Unfortunately, as fervent and earnest as these efforts at non-conformity are, society's vilest filth and flaws (the same ones that Huck desperately tries to avoid) always seem to manage to catch up with him. The optimistic reader can argue that Huck matured throughout his time on the raft with Jim, making changes to the racist and prejudiced views and behaviors that had been instilled in him by society. However, society always wins in the end, and Huck's efforts therefore prove useless and in vain. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay During the first few days that Huck spends with Jim on the raft, the reader can observe that he still displays certain tendencies that society has engendered. him. He reflects the traits instilled in him by Tom when he plays several pranks on Jim. For example, he places the corpse of a snake in Jim's blanket "and curls it into a ball on the foot of Jim's blanket, very naturally, thinking it would be funny when Jim found it there" (115 ). That night, the dead snake's companion comes to Jim's cover and bites Jim's heel, almost killing him. On another occasion, Huck decides, modeled after Tom Sawyer, to board the Walter Scott and bring some criminals to justice, again endangering his own life as well as Jim's when they are almost caught and You are. On one of many occasions, demonstrating the influence Pap had on Huck, he "crept into some cornfields and borrowed a watermelon, or a watermelon, or a punkin, or new corn, or some things of this kind. Pap always said it. "There's no harm in borrowing things, if you intended to pay them back someday" (125). Eventually, Huck begins to show signs of changing over time. He comes to admit that Jim "was almost always right; he had an unusual calm face, for a Negro" (134). Although this statement still arouses many prejudices, it testifies to the fact that there has indeed been progress and change in the Huck's opinion of Jim In another instance, the reader can witness a larger change Huck and Jim had been separated by fog for one night, but Huck decides to trick Jim into believing that all this. was just a dream When he discovers the prank, Jim feels extremely hurt, saying that he was sincerely concerned for Huck's well-being when he realizes his mistake and apologizes to Huck.of Jim: "It took me fifteen minutes before I could get ready to go and humiliate myself in front of a nigger, but I did it...I didn't play any more tricks on him" (142). ). Once again, Huck's statement illustrates that he is still not rid of his innate racism; the apology, however, shows that Huck recognizes Jim as a human being, which any other white person in his position would have been quite difficult to do. During another event, Huck observes that Jim remembers and regrets the fact that he unknowingly beat his deaf daughter. Huck said to himself, "I think he cared as much about his people as the white people did about theirs." It doesn’t seem natural, but I think it is” (210). In this two-faced statement, Huck has once again failed to shed his innate racism; he recognizes that Jim is a good father to his children, a quality that many white men lack (Pap, for example, can never match Jim in his ability to care for and love his children). Finally, near the end of the book, when Jim is willing to risk his freedom so that Tom can see a doctor for his injured leg, Huck states, "I knew he was white inside, and I thought that he would say what he would say. said” (305). This last observation about Jim shows that Huck cannot accept that Jim can be a real man as he is: a black man; instead, Huck recognizes that Jim is a real man but, in fact, changes Jim into a white man in order to explain Jim's actual ability to be an ideal man. This action, in itself, can be seen as undoing all the efforts Huck and Jim have made to escape society. By turning Jim white to validate his ability to be a “man,” Huck is, like all the other white racists from whom he had fled, incapable of recognizing that a black person can actually be a human being. The reader can also see this evasion. of white society for Huck and Jim is, for the most part, impossible. Even though Huck and Jim own their own raft and travel peacefully on the Mississippi River, they often find it necessary to make contact and even interact with the abominable white society (e.g. for provisions/supplies or advice/instructions). However, Huck and Jim are actually affected by white society to a much greater effect. White society is still able to extend its chains of corruption in the form of the "King" and the "Duke", who board the raft and completely dominate Huck and Jim simply because they are white men, the holders of power. figures of their society. Thus, they fundamentally transform the raft, Huck and Jim's "refuge", into a new extension of white society. These two white men then use the raft as a tool for their fraudulent schemes, effectively holding Huck and Jim as their prisoners on the raft (especially Jim, who must be bound and gagged to simulate the image of a captured runaway slave) . which they exploit as they wish. After many unsuccessful stratagems, these men come to sell Jim as a runaway slave. After Huck is finally able to dispose of the King and Duke in search of the now imprisoned Jim, white society further binds him and Jim, through the form of Tom Sawyer, the embodiment of white culture. Even though Tom knows perfectly well that Jim was freed by the deceased Mrs. Watson, he does not inform anyone of this critical fact so that he can have fun "freeing" Jim, whom he then plans to pay for all his "troubles." "Furthermore, even though Tom's plans are ridiculously long and excessive, neither Huck nor Jim dare say a word against Tom because Tom, a representative of white society, has read the white novels and knows how to help Jim " escape” from the “.