e beside him the whole time. Once the truth comes out, Jim responds by saying, “ En all you wuz thinkin’ ‘bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat ruck dah is trash; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en makes ‘em ashamed.” Huck feels so ashamed that he humbles himself and apologizes to Jim, an unheard of behaviour towards a black slave. Still Huck says, “But I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither.” Jim helps Huck to learn decent values and human trust. The Duke and the King make Huck realize that a life of thievery and con-artistry hurts other people. At the beginning of the novel, Huck is excited at the prospect of stealing money from people, although these antics are wholly in the imagination of Tom Sawyer. However, when the Duke and the King try to steal the inheritance from the Wilk girls, Huck feels so guilty that he helps the girls to keep their money. From Huck’s short stay at the Grangefords’, he learns the strong emotions of hate, love, and sorrow. He also learns through the death of Buck, a boy his own age, that life is fragile and feuds and vengeance are terrible things. All the people and adventures that Huck encounters, help him to become the mature and responsible young man he is at the end of the book.In conclusion, the people and events that Huck contends with on his life journey, change his life and the ways he understands life. At the beginning of the book, Huck is a rowdy, young, southern boy who has very little respect for slaves or discipline, and thinks with the “immortality of youth.” By the end of the book, Huck respects humanity, black and white, because of his friendship with Jim; he upholds human life because of his brushes with death; he has an internalized set of moral values because he has seen the results of moral and immoral lifestyles; and he feels ...
