Failure of Humanity
Running head: FAILURE OF HUMANITY
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Failure of Humanity in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and In Contemporary Society
Unnati Patel
Middletown High School
December 22, 2009
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Failure of Humanity
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Failure of Humanity in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and In Contemporary Society
According to Ernest Hemingway, “All modern American literature comes from one book
by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn” (Lombardi, 2009, para. 3). Along with Hemingway,
many others believe that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel. Mark Twain
takes the readers beneath the fatuous of humanity and shows the readers the failures in society.
Two main examples of failures in society are greed and selfishness, which occur throughout the
novel. These characteristics are not only displayed in his 19th century novel, but also have
continued though out history and can still be seen today.
Greed is a desire when one is not satisfied with what he/she already has and want more
and more. In most cases, greed is often related to money. Mark Twain shows greed in several
characters throughout the novel. When the novel begins, Huck finds out that Pap is coming to St.
Petersburg. To protect his $6,000 reward, he goes to Judge Thatcher and tells him to “Please take
it” (Twain, 2005, p.20). He does that because he knows that Pap wishes to gain control of him
and in turn, get to the money that he found. Pap went to “Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged him
and tired to make him give up the money” (Twain, 2005, p.26). This shows the aspect of greed in
Pap because he did not come back to see his son, but instead, was entranced with the idea of
acquiring the money. There are many more characters that share this trait of greed.
When the novel begins to unfold, Twain shows the quality of greed in the two main
characters, Huck and Jim. Together, Huck and Jim start their journey down the Mississippi River.
One night, they see a two-story floating house drifting along. They “climb in at the up-stairs
window” (Twain, 2005, p.61) and took basically everything that they found. During the course of
the novel, they did not even happen to use most of it. For example, “rag stopper for a baby to
suck, a leather dog-collar, beeswax and buttons and thread” (Twain, 2005, p.62). Stealing
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unnecessary things is greedy but causing harm to others just for enjoyment is selfish.
A selfish act is seen in the character Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer reenters the novel in
chapter thirty three. He tells Huck that he will “help...steal” (Twain, 2005, p.269) Jim. Tom
Sawyer calls Huck's plan "mild as goose-milk" (Twain, 2005, p. 276) and plans out an
elaborate/storybook plan to help free Jim. Tom's complicated plan involves digging a hole to
Jim's cabin, making a rope ladder, and Jim making a coat of arms with his own blood. Also in
Tom's plan, Jim needs a large grindstone to carve into. Tom decides that the cabin needs other
residents, including spiders, rats and snakes, in order to make it a proper dungeon and Jim a
proper prisoner. Even though Jim protests says “I doan' want non. I's afeard un um” (Twain,
2005, p. 313). After three entire weeks, Tom agreed that it was time for Jim to be free, while
Huck's plan would have only taken a day or not even. While running away, Tom gets injured and
ends up back at the Philips. He wakes up and reveals that “Old Miss Watson died two months
ago... and she set him [Jim] free in her will” (Twain, 2005, p.345). This reveals that Tom Sawyer
was selfish because he put Jim through all that trouble when knowing that he was already free.
Tom said that he “wanted the adventure of it” (Twain, 2005, p.345).
Pap, Jim, Huck and Tom Sawyer are not the only paradigms of greed and selfishness.
Many people in society also display the same characteristics. “Imelda Marcos, the widow of
former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled the country [Philippines] from 1965 to 1986”
(Barrett, 2009, para.1) is a prototype of greed. She was arrested and charged with corruption and
amassing wealth illegally, during her husband's regime. While the “average Filipino lived on less
than $2 a day”, Ms. Marcos went to New York and Rome for $5 million shopping sprees
(Barrett, 2009, para.1). This shows that Ms. Marcos, and in part her husband, was greedy
because she only cared for her unnecessary needs and stole billions of dollars from the people
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that she governed.
Another ideal epitome of selfishness is the situation that involves United States and Iraq.
Misuse of political power in world politics makes it unfair, where one country has an advantage,
while the other writhers away due to disadvantages. For example, USA military actions on Iraq
have now been discussed for considerable amount of years. Although it is seen as a “legal action
by some parts of society” (Lasseter & Landay, 2005, para. 2), the fact is so obvious that there is a
selfish behavior of the United States on Iraq. Iraqi people have suffered a lot, and they started to
live in fear because the balance of country collapsed due to American action. Many people
“earned a lot of money on this war in some sectors such as; construction of buildings, petroleum
exportation” (Lasseter & Landay, 2005, para. 4). However, these people who earn money are
with America, therefore this selfish action made some people rich and some people poor. The
United States are in a manner only caring about itself.
One prime example of both selfishness and greed in our society is Madoff's Ponzi
scheme. Ponzi scheme is when the manger, in this case Madoff, fraudulently promises to pay
high percentage of return for little risk. The scheme generates returns by paying old investors
with the cash flow from new investors. Thus, fraud can only continue if there is a continuous
flow of new investors. Bernard Madoff started his career in the 1960s. He began his fraud in the
1990s and “estimates the fraud to be approximately $50 billion” (FRONTLINE, 2009, para.21)
from his investors over the course of eighteen years. “Investors counted on his reputation, rather
than on diligent inspection of his audits, to safeguard their money” (Barrett, 2009, para.2). This
man is not only greedy, but also fairly selfish.
When Madoff's scandal was discovered, people lost mostly everything that they owned.
Clients of Madoff who were supports of many helpful organizations had to shut down. For
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example, one investor had opened up a “school in one of the harshest slums of India” (Alex,
2009, para. 2). “It was a counter to the abduction of young girls for prostitution, and taught the
young boys values” (Alex, 2009, para. 3). However, after the Madoff scandal, the school could
no longer be funded, and it was closed down. This was not the only charity that was affected by
his scandal, there were numerous charity's invested in him, ranging from organizations helping
right here in the U.S. to Africa, to South America. Madoff never thought about how many people
he would affect. Instead, he thought about all the billions that were going into his pocket.
Mark Twain shows greed and selfishness as failures of humanity in his novel, Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn. He displays these characteristics through Pap, Jim, Huck, and Tom Sawyer.
In Today's world, there is greed and selfishness at every corner you turn. Showing humanity has
not changed and that the world continues to be filled with greedy and selfish people. Will
humanity ever change or will it be greedy and selfish forever?
Failure of Humanity
References
Alex. (2009). The effects of greed on an interconnected world. Retrieved from http://earthgroup.
viviti.com/entries/environmental-ethics/the-effects-of-greed-on-an-interconnected-world
Barrett, S. (2009). Imelda Marcos agrees: she’s “guilty” of greed. Retrieved from
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2009/04/08/imelda-marcosagrees-with-us-pleads-guilty-to-being-greedy.aspx
Barrett, W.P. (2009). Lessons from Madoff. (Bernard L. Madoff Ponzi scheme). Forbes Global,
5(1), 50.
FRONTLINE. (2009). The Madoff affair. Retrieved from
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/madoff/cron/
Lasster, T., & Landay, J.S. (2005). Analysis: Iraqi insurgency growing larger. Knight Rider
Washington Bureau. Retrieved from
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/168/37325.html.
Maxted, L.R. (2009) The Madoff affair.(ripped off: Madoff and the scamming of America).
Library Journal,134.15, 37.
Twain, M. (2005). Adventures of huckleberry finn. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications,
Inc.
White, D.A. Are we becoming selfish as a society? The National Journal, 23.
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