Wisdom Of Huckleberry's Heart example essay topic

group D Friday II Final essay Charles Dickens and Mark Twain's lessons Writers can not only entertain their readers by telling an appealing story, but they can also educate the readers and open their minds. Charles Dickens and Mark Twain are both very famous and important writers. Although Dickens is British and Twain American, they had the same purpose with their writing. They both wrote novels that made stories appealing to the common man as well as to educate people.

A comparison of the two novels Hard times by Charles Dickens and The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain can show that although both writers lived in different societies they shared the same point of views about life and used their writing to educate their readers and change their societies positively. Both books sati rise individuals who think that they are superior to others, by doing this the writers want to show their readers that this is a wrong thing to do. In The adventures of Huckleberry Finn the general southern public is satirized, as they are mostly portrayed as ignorant, prejudiced individuals. In their society, whites are seen as the superior race, and blacks are owned as property, and are slaves to common folk. The word 'Nigger' is used multiple times in the story, as to stress their ignorance.

It is illegal for blacks to get proper education, so in no way could they rise up, and seemingly be forever oppressed. This is shown as Jim, a black slave is constantly called a Nigger, even by Huckleberry, who is the only character in the book that treats Jim as a person. In Hardtimes the arrogance of the upper classes is satirized. The characters Mrs. Sparsit and James Harthouse represent the upper class in the novel. Mrs. Sparsit clings fiercely to her heritage and faded glamour. She is arrogant to those beneath her and despises the efforts of the workers to organize a union.

Harthouse is revealed as cynical and directionless. He seduces Louisa, one of the important characters and treats this as a division, without thinking of the consequences of his actions. In both stories the conflict of the wisdom of the heart and the wisdom of the head is brought out to show people that they sometimes have to let their heart guide them. In Hardtimes, Gradgrind represents the wisdom of the head. His philosophy is utilitarianism. This philosophy is based on scientific laws that dictate that nothing else is important but profit, and that profit is achieved by the pursuit of cold hard facts.

Everything that is not factual is considered as imagination. The wisdom of the heart is embodied in Sissy June. Simple, considered uneducable, Sissy brings goodness and purity to bear on many of the characters, including Gradgrind. As he sees the products of his philosophy shattered around him, particularly Louisa and Tom, he begins to wonder if the wisdom of the heart that others have talked about really exists. Sissy proves to him that it does, and she salvages a great deal that might have been lost. In The adventures of Huckleberry Finn the conflict between wisdom of de heart and wisdom of the head takes place in one character.

Huckleberry constantly challenges his morals with the way he is brought up, as a racist southern boy, and his own personal beliefs; his heart. The main point of this conflict is mostly based on the way society treats Jim. Many times in the story, Huckleberry treats Jim poorly, merely because of his skin colour, as he does such things as place a rattlesnake skin near Jim as he is sleeping, which ends up in Jim being bitten by a snake. Also since Jim is a slave, and because of his colour many references to the word 'Nigger' are plagued throughout the story, as he is being called one, and so are the rest of the black population in the book. But that is where Huckleberry's conflict arises. He sees Jim as a nice, hearted man and wishes to set him free.

But at the same time, he has his own prejudices as in chapter twenty-three, Huckleberry has a revelation. Watching Jim grieve because of his far away family, Huckleberry concludes that blacks must love their families as much as whites love theirs. The wisdom of Huckleberry's heart starts to question society's ways. The theme of the struggle of the individual with his society is evident in both novels, to show the wrongs of the societies they are concerned with. In Hard times the abuses of a profit hungry society are revealed, that results in a variety of social disgraces: poor education of its children; cities filled with smoke and polluted water: dangerous factory machines; dreadful working conditions; substandard housing for the workers. This corrupt society is more interested in productivity and profit than the health and happiness of its citizens.

We see this theme worked out through the character of Stephen Blackpool, a factory worker. Stephen's live is a mess, in part because he and other workers are exploited from all sides. Their employer, Bounder by, thinks that their lives are easy and that their complaints stem from selfishness and greed. The utilitarians who run the schools and the government are interested only in profit. The union organizers are driven by power- hungry self -interest.

At one point Stephen indicates that the workers have bad leaders because only bad leaders are offered to them. Throughout the book, the workers are almost all faceless, nameless individuals. They are called by the reductive term 'hands', because it is their working hands that are important to the employers not their souls or brains or spirits. The society that is depicted in Mark Twain's book is of a racist, closed minded, ignorant south in which slavery is still prominent, and it does not seem to be changing anytime soon. Through society, Huckleberry believes that whites are a superior race, and that blacks should be treated like they are, as slaves.

Black people are constantly called 'nigger' in the story. When Huckleberry frees Jim, he sees that as wrong because the values of his society have taught him that freeing slaves is a punishable offence, so in his na " ive mind, he thinks that has done wrong. At the same time, his own beliefs, largely formed by his experiences with Jim, tell him that it is best for Jim to be free. He is constantly wondering if he is right, and that freeing Jim was actually a good thing, or if society is right, and Huckleberry should turn Jim in. Finally, he decides to not care about morality, and simply be bad, his own sense of right and wrong is stronger. The books compared shows an obvious resemblance between Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

They both were against unequal treatment between people. In Mark Twain's case the inequality between black and white in America and in Charles Dickens case the inequality between the different social classes in England. They both believed that people essentially have good hearts but are distracted from what their good hearts tell them by their heads which are filled by society with wrong philosophies. In Hard Times the wrong philosophy is utilitarianism and in The adventures of Huckleberry Finn it is the philosophy that whites are superior to blacks and that blacks are thus their property. Mark Twain and Charles Dickens were both against abusive societies that made the lives of people a struggle. They both lived in such societies and wanted to change this.

They dreamt of an idealistic society where people are equal and listen to their good hearts and used their writing skills and wrote novels like Hard Times and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to educate people.

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. London: Penguin books, 1995.
Twain, Mark. The adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: W.W. Norton & Company inc. 1990.