Notes

Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he WAS most free—and who was to blame for it? Why, ME. I couldn't get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't rest; I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every time, "But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody." That was so—I couldn't get around that noway. That was where it pinched. (16)

Talk about moral crisis. Huck realizes that, according to the laws of the land, he's the wrongdoer, because he's helped Jim escape. And Huck may be a liar and a runaway, but he's not sure he should be breaking any laws. His internal system of morality is in head-on conflict with the external system of laws that he's learned from the widow. Which one's going to win?

"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."

"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell you the same." (5.19-5.24)

Huck has no problem lying later in the book, but here he's got some major scruples about lying to his dad. Why? It's not like Pap is overly concerned with his own honesty. "What did you say your name was, honey?"


Another one of those don't-try-this-at-home things: caught in a lie, Huck just tells another lie. In the real world, that's a pretty good way to get grounded for three weeks. But on the Mississippi, it just gets Huck a warning.

Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his promise to ole Jim" (16.16)

Oops. Well, gee. Now Huck can't tell on Jim, because Jim has made him feel super guilty—and also pointed out to us that, despite all the lies, Huck is probably the most moral person in the entire novel. Or maybe even in the entire pre-Civil War South.