The Uncivilised Upbringing
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an original American coming of age story. A boy named Huck befriends a black man in the antebellum United States and travels with him down the Mississippi river, both making an attempt to escape their past lives. On his journey Huck goes from being a naive country boy to a young man who understands and is disgusted of human nature and society. He becomes knowledgeable of society without ever truly having a formal education, that of which he would call “sivilized” (Twain 2). As a young person, learning about society through personal experiences or being exposed to the world in other ways than just a textbook, is a far better option than the civilized and often hypocritical…show more content… Regarding smoking, The Widow said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and Huck must try to not do it any more. Yet, Huck reveals that the widow took snuff and that of course that wasn’t an unclean act because “she done it herself” (Twain 1). However, Huck never actually regarded the Widow as being hypocritical because he actually believed her when she said smoking was unclean and therefore he just assumed chewing tobacco wasn’t unclean because she partook in it. There are many examples of modern children being raised in hypocrisy like Huck was. For example, the classic “do as I say, not as I do” line many parents use. Most adults at some point in their parental journey feel they have earned the right to be this way. After all, they are adults (Daniel 1). But that doesn’t mean telling a child to never curse and proceeding to curse like a sailor in front of them is a good parenting…show more content… In modern America there are now truancy laws that differ from the period in which Huck lived, so all children attend school in some way. However, just because formal education is required these days doesn’t mean there aren’t different methods of teaching and different types of schools. Huck would be a public school kid. In almost all public schools children are less sheltered from the violence and immorality in society. In private schools, which are often religious, children rarely get in fights or do drugs. Arguments can be made both ways regarding which of these systems are better for a child’s development, but Twain would likely favor public schooling. Twain believed humanity has its undeniable issues and he reflected his beliefs through Huck. A good example is when Huck enters an Arkansas village and witnesses a murder and the aftermath after the town’s people decide to start a mob. After it seemed the mob was going to stop at nothing to lynch the murderer, a simple speech from the murderer makes them completely lose interest. After this incident Huck makes the comment that he could’ve stuck around in the town but he didn’t want too (Twain 150). It even seems as though Huck lost another bit of his already little faith in humanity that