describes Colonel Grangerford as, "...a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all over; and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and thats worth as much in a man as it is in a horse..." (104). You can almost hear the sarcasm from Twain in Hucks description of Colonel Grangerford. Later Huck is becoming aware of the hypocrisy of the family and its feud with the Shepardsons when Huck attends church. He is amazed that while the minister preaches about brotherly love both the Grangerfords and Shepardsons are carrying weapons. Finally when the feud erupts into a gunfight, Huck sits in a tree, disgusted by the waste and cruelty of the feud, "It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree...I wished I hadnt ever come ashore that night to see such things." Nowhere else is Twains voice heard more clearly than as a mob gathers at the house of Colonel Sherburn to lynch him. Here we hear the full force of Twains thoughts on the hypocrisy an cowardice of society, "The idea of you lynching anybody! Its amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man!...The pitifulest thing out is a mob; thats what an army is- a mob; they dont fight with courage thats born in them, but with courage thats borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness" (146-147). Each of these examples finds Huck again running to freedom of the river. The river never cares how saintly you are, how rich you are, or what society thinks you are. The river allows Huck the one thing that Huck wants to be, and that is Huck. The river is freedom than the land is oppression, and that oppression is no more evident than it is to Jim. It is somewhat surprising that Hucks traveling companion is Jim. As anti-society that Huck is, you would think that he would have no qualms about helping Jim. But Huck has to have feelings that slavery is correct so we can see the...
