Huckleberry Finn Moral Conflict Huckleberry Finn is “a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat.” ~ Mark Twain

Moral Conflict Throughout the novel, Huck is troubled by the tensions between what society tells him is right and his own sense of morality – his conscience. “If I had a yaller dog that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person’s insides, and yet ain’t no good, nohow.” “I warn’t feeling so brash as I was before, but kind of ornery, and humble and to blame, somehow- though I hadn’t done nothing. But that’s always the way; it don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense and just goes for him anyway.”

Moral Conflict External conflicts are struggles between characters who have different goals or between a character and forces of nature. Internal conflicts are psychological struggles that characters experience when they are unhappy or face difficult decisions. Are moral conflicts external or internal?

Moral Conflict Huck’s sense of morality seems quite flexible. He lies on occasion and thinks an occasional “stretcher” is ok, but he believes his word is his bond. He hates the rules imposed by Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, but he follows them. When he breaks rules, and even the law, sometimes he feels guilty, sometimes not. He can’t make up his mind about Jim – to turn in his friend (and bring certain harm to him) or to go to hell for helping Jim escape.

Moral Conflict Is Huck at all times a rebel or does he sometimes go along to get along? Does his doing the right thing ever clash with what society tells him is right? How does Huck deal with these tensions?

Moral Conflict To earn participation points for this lecture, relate Huck’s moral conflicts to your one of your own. Write a paragraph describing a time in your life when you were confronted with moral conflict – a choice between what your conscience told you was right and what society (friends, parents, teachers) told you was right. Consider the following: Was it easy to decide? Was it easy to tell what the right thing was? How did you feel after you decided?