Prompt #4

Prompt:

1999. The eighteenth-century British novelist Laurence Sterne wrote, "No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time."

From a novel or play choose a character (not necessarily the protagonist) whose mind is pulled in conflicting directions by two compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. Then, in a well-organized essay, identify each of the two conflicting forces and explain how this conflict with one character illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may use one of the novels or plays listed below or another novel or work of similar literary quality.

Response:

In Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck, the protagonist, struggles to choose between his inner morals and the values of white pre-Civil War society. Huck has an innate sense that he is doing the right thing by helping Jim, a slave, escape to the north, but most whites look down on Jim and on Huck’s actions. At multiple points, Huck is tempted to follow the rest of society and return Jim, although he ultimately makes the decision to help Jim attain freedom. This inner conflict highlights the social conflict America was facing in the 19^th century as well as Twain’s abolitionist views.

As a white in pre-Civil War Missouri, Huck lives in a society in which it is considered perfectly normal for whites to own, look down on, and abuse black slaves and unusual to think otherwise. Throughout his journey with Jim, he is repeatedly tempted to turn Jim over and to join the rest of white society in its prejudiced beliefs. Initially, when Huck finds Jim on Jackson’s Island, the first thing that comes to his mind is that he should probably turn Jim in, since he is a runaway slave. This knee-jerk mental response indicates just how strong an impression the slavery codes have made on him already. However, as he talks to Jim and learns about Jim’s life, he comes to the moral conclusion that Jim and his family deserve freedom. This inner conflict in Huck – between the social norms of the American South and his own conscience – not only demonstrates Huck’s moral courage, but is also symbolic of the conflict that was tearing America apart during the pre-Civil War era.

Later on, when the King sells Jim (as an escaped slave) while Huck is gone, Huck’s conscience once again argues that he is stealing from Miss Watson by helping Jim escape. Yet he exclaims, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell!” and maintains his resolution to free Jim. This effectively represents the two polar views of slaves at the time – the predominating view in the South that slaves were property, not humans, and the abolitionist view that Huck develops throughout the story as he matures. The underlying religious struggle within Huck (whether or not he will go to hell if he aids Jim) also offers insight into just how strongly the idea of slavery was integrated into the ethos of the South. In the most religious part of the country, failure to adhere to the code of slavery was actually considered a sin. It is no wonder that Huck was so torn by the conflict between his conscience and the way he was raised in the South and that he almost reverted to acceptance of slavery. In this light, it is all the more extraordinary that Huck broke from social norms and bravely followed his inner moral sense instead.

Mark Twain was a known abolitionist and Huck’s inner struggle clearly shows it. Huck, the protagonist, ignores white conventions and resolves to free Jim, just as Twain hoped the country would move on from bigotry to emancipation of slaves. On the other hand, many of the antagonists in the story, including the King and many of the whites Huck encounters along the Mississippi, are pro-slavery and would not hesitate to sell Jim to the authorities or to other slave traders if they knew that he were a runaway. The length and difficulty of the struggle in Huck’s mind is representative of what it took to achieve emancipation, but the strength of Huck’s ultimate conviction clearly indicates Twain’s adamancy on the subject and his belief that abolition was achievable.