Huck’s Maturation Journey
Transition and Maturation of Huck into adulthood is evident in his progressive separation from society throughout the novel. At the beginning of the book, when we first encounter him, Huck is in the process of being indoctrinated into the society by the Widow Douglas. His hypocrisy can be seen. However, Huck does not mind being regarded as an outsider. However, his society begins indoctrinating him and forces him into conforming when he suddenly he is handed economic power. From this point, it can be seen that Huck has no desire to get “sivilized”. Even before the book starts, he leaves and leaves the widow and returns. Huck protests against what he terms as the “respectable life”, which unfortunately he is part of. He returns only with slight coercion from his friend. Nonetheless, he does not completely disenchant himself from immaturity as he attains at the end.
“The Widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer, he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.” (Twain 1).
After leaving St. Petersburg for Mississippi, Huck encounters different situations that break his innocent concepts about society. He and his friend Jim meet different people who are shown as stupid and malicious such as the Duke and the King. He wonders who can be too foolish to fall for the trap. He is disappointed and moves down the river. After attempting to steal his fortune, he observes;
“Well, the men gathered around, and sympathized with them, and said all sorts of kind things to them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the King all about his brother’s last moments, and the King he told it all over again on his hands to the duke– It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race,” (Twain 122).
The last step that completes Huck’s maturation journey is the brutal reality he is exposed to. When he is separated from Jim and moved to the Grangerford family, a family in fighting Shepherdons family, he has to abandon the notions he held about violence and adapt to the real world. Huck gets involved in one of the fights between these two families. After this senseless violence, which he doesn’t fathom, Huck is fully matured and learns how violent society can be. At the end of the novel, he finally decides to return saying;
“But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before,” (Twain 220).
Later on putting his indoctrination aside and humbling himself to Jim, Huck commits never to upset him again. The moral transformation allows him to consider Jim as a fellow human being who needs kind treatment and demonstrates he has detached himself from racism. At the end of the novel, Huck is seen to have abandoned his earlier help conceptions and can be said to have grown.