[H] Chris: Chapters 29-31

In Chapters 29-31, the readers see a significant growth of maturity in Huck’s character. His growth takes place from pg. 160 to the top of 162 when he ends on “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” in what is known as his “crisis of conscience”. In his “crisis of conscience”, Huck Finn debates whether or not going after Jim is the right thing to do or not, but more importantly, if he wants to go after Jim or not because he would then be making a confrontation with decisions that he usually would run away from. It is because he debates, has the capacity to think, that is the reason the readers love him as a protagonist and his debates consist of many of the books ideals such as equality between whites and blacks and if Jim is just a oblivious runaway or the mastermind behind the scenes, and finally if any of it matters at all.

The “crisis of conscience” deals with whether or not Huck should or should not rescue Jim. Huck starts thinking of how “wicked” he’s been for stealing Jim away from Miss Watson, and the blow to his reputation that it would do. Here the reader sees Twain showing how the Southerners actually that blacks were inferior and should be treated as animals.

He then becomes “clean of sin” when he at first decided to let Jim be taken away, but then he thinks of the “good times” that he has experienced with Jim and finally decides that “ All right then, I’ll go to hell.” This is possibly the most important statement that Huck will say in the entire book, and it is ironic how we, the readers, are rooting for him because he made what the reader believes to be the right choice, but he, the doer of the deed, actually thinks that he is going to hell because he’s going to rescue a runaway slave. Not only does he decide to go to hell for the sake of Jim, he is not running away from the decision and just watch it past by him, he’s actually confronting what seems to be a his future after life decision, whether or not to go to hell, and the reader sees Huck grow as a character and as a man when he decides to do something instead of allowing the “grown-ups” to decide what to do.