With his novel about the journeys of a young adolescent and the struggles with the trials and questions associated with Huck's maturation, Mark Twain examines social standards and the influence of adults who experience themselves in childhood. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been condemned since its publication, usually focusing, especially in modern times, on the use of the word "nigger". While this might be a valid argument if the author had portrayed Jim negatively, I find another reason to oppose the novel, especially from school boards and parent groups: because it subverts the ideals that many parents wish to instill in their impressionable youth. Reading this book for the first time since high school and after leaving my parents three years ago, watching Huck live without parental control made me realize how impressionable he is to the values ​​instilled by his constant role models. Without being forced to conform to social standards, Huck can use his own logic to figure out what is good and what is bad, instead of blindly following the "wisdom" of his elders. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay At the beginning of the novel, Huck shows his skepticism of the values ​​that society imposes when the Widow Douglas attempts to civilize him, running away for his freedom until his friends threaten to expel him from the gang. Given the possibility of solitude or independence, Huck chooses to return. When his father returns and takes custody of him again, Huck is stripped of his friends against his will. Locked alone in the cabin, Huck has plenty of time to consider his options. If he remains in the cabin, he will continue to be powerless over his father's will. If he runs away and returns to the city, he will only be returned to his drunken father, who will surely beat him. He realizes that escape is his only solution. By staging his own murder, Huck kills himself due to societal influences and allows his own uninhibited personal growth. Now free from society's rules and standards, Huck is able to approach life in a way that most teenagers wish were possible. He is fortunate enough to have Jim for company, removing the loneliness that had prevented him from escaping society. Unfortunately, this friendship has already been overshadowed by society's influence on Huck. Fortunately, free from the rules and standards of society, Huck can begin to undo his misperception of slaves and slowly begins to realize that Jim is just as human as he is. During the first few chapters in which they are together, Twain quickly shows the beneficial effect the two have on each other. Jim's contribution to Huck is an adult presence, which while expressing a life experience, is not overbearing, due to Jim's lower status. Additionally, Jim provides protection to Huck from both physical and emotional pain. Twain quickly provides examples of both forms of protection in Chapter 9. Within a few days of their union, Jim's life experiences allow the couple to prepare for the torrential storm that hits the island, as Jim predicted. If it weren't for Jim and his ability to notice changes in animal behavior, Huck may have been trapped in the river when the storm began, and perhaps drowned. After the storm, Jim, as we learn at the end of the novel, puts off Huck's knowledge of his father's death until necessary. While it is true that Huck's father beat him and inhibited his development as a normal member of society, the fact remainsthat every child, especially at an impressionable age, is usually seriously affected by the loss of a parent. While the news of his death wouldn't affect Huck, actually seeing a disfigured corpse is something most people would rather be protected from. Continuing with Huck's realization of the problems in society that are best understood from outside of it, the experience he has with the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords opens his eyes to the problems of blindly following tradition. As we have seen, many people tried to persuade Huck to follow this path, rather than allowing him to make logical decisions on his own. We witnessed this when his father scolded him for learning to read and write, claiming that no one in their family was literate, so why should Huck. This experience with feuding families exemplifies why people should not blindly follow tradition like sheep. At this point we meet Buck, representative of an adolescent mind destroyed by adults. Although he is the same age as the protagonist, Buck's judgment has been destroyed by the ongoing feud between his family and the Shepherdsons. He admits to Huck that the feud started over a lawsuit between dead people a long time ago. Through generations of teaching children to hate the other clan, both families demonstrate one extreme of what can happen by blindly following. Because of this refusal to rationalize logically, they are all killed needlessly. Knowingly or not, Huck realizes his good fortune in the fact that he has been freed from many of the preconceptions that society would impose on him, as they had with his dead friend. For this reason he cries while covering the face of the boy who was not given the opportunity to realize his mistakes. Huck's subsequent encounter with society and its values ​​furthers his cynical realizations, as he and Jim meet the Duke and the King. Huck quickly realizes that these men are cheaters, not only to the people they cheat, but also to their fellow men. They represent the lowest morals in society, which, interestingly, Huck already attributes to the leaders. This is why he does not communicate this knowledge to Jim, even though he knows they are lying about their positions. During the two men's time on the raft, we are given a glimpse of how morality, if left unchecked, can quickly spiral downward, especially when greed is involved. At first, the men simply swindle entire towns out of small change, charging a small admission to watch the men badly act out scenes from Shakespeare. Wanting more and seeing how easy it is, even though they already have prior experience, they move forward to charging more for an even less entertaining show, The Royal Nonesuch, demonstrating how easily people are swayed by advertising. In their final two acts of inhumanity, the royal duo appear to abandon all sense of decency and attempt to steal all the inheritance money from three grieving girls, then sell Jim back into slavery after the plan is foiled by the men. that they are impersonating. Even though they were successful in their previous ventures, Twain makes them backfire. As for the inheritance, Huck steals the money, which the real family finds in the coffin, and the swindlers barely escape punishment. They don't learn, though, and when they choose to make $40 more valuable than Jim, they are finally punished, as he informs Mr. Phelps of the scam and the men are tarred and feathered and run out onto a track. This is one of Twain's most striking blows against slavery, as men are punished,.