Ryne Allen Summary Good 92

Ryne Allen Summary Good 92 English 212 (084) Analysis Good 1-18-2011 Grammar OK Dr. Bruce A. Magee Huckleberry Finn’s Conscience Crises

Many different works of literature, over a wide variety of genres, have one thing in common, a character struggle. The character can struggle against different things such as: society, nature, and itself. The last thing in the list can be the hardest to overcome throughout a story, but the outcome can out-weigh the struggle in positive and negative ways. In Norris W.

Yates’ article, “The “Counter Conversion” of Huckleberry Finn,” he picks out and analyzes the many controversial situations thrown in Huckleberry’s way and that the way he handles them ultimately changes his character. Many symbols appear throughout any work of literature and are passed over by most readers. In this work’s case, many religious elements take place in

Huckleberry’s society and affect his struggle with his conscience and decisions made. Normally, a sinner will do what it takes to convert itself to a lesser evil, which, one could tell, Huckleberry tries to do throughout the story. As Huckleberry tries to convert himself, he finds himself in two distinct situations to where he must make a decision which could set him back into his “counter conversion.”

After knowing this connection, one might think, “How did Twain come up with the ideas of conversion and counter conversion?” One theory Yates talks about is how Twain’s brother got expelled from the Presbyterian Church as Twain was already about half way through

Huckleberry Finn. This event caused him to remember his past differences with the Church where Yates goes on to bring up a paper Twain wrote before Huckleberry Finn was published later to be named “What Is Man?, that indicated a keen interest in both conversion and counter- conversion.” Yates is correct because it is represented in two crises where Huckleberry is counter- converted.

Huckleberry had several religious influences at first ultimately portraying that heaven and hell exist, but he believes only the worthy will go to heaven. Huckleberry meets a runaway slave named Jim, who belonged to the Widow, and starts to unconsciously form a bond with him.

They travel together “towards freedom” and Huckleberry’s conscience starts to detect sin as he views helping Jim as tampering with the widow’s property. The unconscious bond between Huck and Jim gets stronger before the first counter-conversion crisis takes place. Two men ask Huck if

Jim is “white or black” to which he answers “white” to protect Jim. He follows that by lying to the men leading them astray which makes him feel guilty realizing that giving Jim up would make him feel the same. Before the next counter-conversion, Huck is exposed to different religious activity which will affect his decision. Jim has been turned into white law placing him

“at the Phelpses.” Huck rejects the idea of writing a letter to the widow telling her the news, but ends up writing it after a failed attempt to pray about it. Feeling cleansed of sin after composing the letter, memories and his bond with Jim become conscience causing him to surrender to hell and rip up the letter. That act completes his counter-conversion and abandons all hope “of any further effort at salvation.”

I really enjoyed reading this article because I never really got the point Yates made and saw all of the religious elements. Although it was difficult to read and understand, I got the main idea and understood what Yates was reviewing. The way Yates was able to prove Twain’s ideas of conversion and counter-conversion was intriguing. I thought that the other sources within this article did a good job in offering a further analysis of the main idea. Yates did well in writing this article, but one thing I didn’t like was how a majority of the article was a summary of the story opposed to having more commentary supporting the purpose. Overall, reading this article was very beneficial to my understanding of Huckleberry Finn, gave a great analysis of Huck’s conscience struggles, and I highly recommend this article.

Yates, Norris W. “The “Counter Conversion” of Huckleberry Finn.” American Literature

Vol.32, No.1 (March, 1960), pp. 1-10. JSTOR. Web.

http://ezproxy.prescott.latech.edu:2071/stable/pdfplus/2922797.pdf