Huckleberry Finn Blog #5 - Chapters 31-43

Okay, so now you can watch the video if you'd like :)

Social Responsibility:

     In the rest of our story we see the last glimmers of social responsibility portrayed in Huckleberry Finn. In chapter 31, I was happily surprised to see that Huck had finally made up his mind! He broke away from the thought of slavery being good for Jim and has gone off to save him from his captors! I cheered for Huck when he said, "All right then, I’ll go to hell! ... It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming." (Twain, 242). This showed enormous progress in social responsibility for Huck. Although he was going against all society had taught him, he saw through it all to the man he knew to be Jim. The responsibility of protecting a good, innocent man dominated the need to keep with society's rules.
     In chapter 32, we finally reach the Phelps' place and meet Sally who thinks it is "lucky" that only a nigger died when Huck makes up his story of being Tom delayed by a boat accident. It's really incredible and almost ludicrous of how unimportant blacks are to the white folks in the story. In the next chapter Tom comes back into the story and is more than willing to help Huck free Jim. Huck is surprised by this. When you think about it, does that make Tom the better of the two?At the end of the chapter however we do again come to see Huck show the better side of himself. When the duke and the dauphin go by tarred and feathered followed by a mob Huck admits that he, "...couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world", (Twain, 259). Huck was truly appalled by what had happened to them but then he goes on to say, " it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense", (Twain, 260). Is he right?
    In the next few chapters, Huck makes Tom seem a great, respectable guy, yet here he is trying to free a slave (oh, the horror!). He even goes on to make Huck give money to the slaves for stealing a watermelon. It's quite odd the way Tom sees his responsibility in society compared to other people. He doesn't seem to view slaves as everyone else. He could steal all the things in the world, but from a slave he finds it wrong. Even Huck finds it odd. In all honesty Tom is kinda crazy to me, but I find him the better man of the two of them even though I like Huck for his overall ideas once he breaks from society.
    After many (not super important) chapters go by, we finally reach Jim, Huck, and Tom's escape! The escape is drawn out and dramatic and poor, sweet Tom gets out of it with a bullet in his leg. Huck recognizes Jim as "white inside" because he says they should get a doctor to check the wound and if one of them were in Tom's position he would've said the same. I assume being white inside would mean being rational and moral? Not really sure, but if that is what consists of being white then I think Jim might be whiter than the two of them.
    In chapter 41, Huck goes to get a doctor, leaving Jim and Tom on the raft. The next morning he runs into Silas and what do you know? He gets taken back to the Phelps place! The thing that bothered me most was that Huck doesn't escape again to find Tom! The story says he stays because he feels bad for Sally and all, but this is his best friend who got shot in the leg!! What?!
    In chapter 42 I believe we reach the almost end to our story. Tom gets taken back to the Phelps' with the doctor and Jim. Tom is nursed back to health and lo' and behold! He tells us that Jim has been free for 2 months now because old Miss Watson has died and left Jim free in her will. I'm sorry, but I wanted to just hit Tom. All the trouble he put Jim and Huck through!! SO terrible. His Aunt Polly returns and yells at the boys for their misadventures as well she should! These boys, smh.
    In the end, we see the white folks treat Jim like a great person, no longer a slave. (Tom even gives Jim money!) It's a fantastic thing and we also find out that Huck's Pap has died. For both Jim and Huck, they have finally obtained their freedom and all that comes with it. Except for Huck's small problem of Sally trying to adopt and sivilize him which he says he "cant stand it,' as he's, 'been there before,"(Twain, 324). So, has Huck evolved as a character in the ways of social responsibility since the beginning of the book? I think he has. He has finally decided what he wants (which is to stay out of society) and now knows that black folk are not bad and slavery comes at a price.
    What do you guys think? Has he evolved in society? Or is he still the same?