Independence is one of the most significant parts of adolescence; when forming into an adult, you learn to challenge what you were told as a naive, gullible child. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, this theme is fully explored through Huck, a thirteen year old white boy who abandons home to make a life for his own. After joining forces with a runaway slave, Jim, Huck begins to postulate that perhaps blacks aren't sufficiently inferior to whites as to justify owning them, contrary to what his father and Miss Watson told him growing up. One of the first expressions of this idea is in Chapter 16, when Huck refuses to reveal Jim to the police. The literary devices and miscellaneous features in this passage contribute to the larger theme of becoming morally independent from your upbringing during your adolescence.
In the beginning of the passage, Huck tells the policemen: “I won't let no runaway niggers get by me if I can help it” (Twain). The use of the derogatory word, as well as the sentiment that Huck declares to the police officer, shows that Huckleberry is not ready to own his beliefs. The situation was settled, the police officers were on their way out, Huckleberry even got some money. This was a seemingly unnecessary comment that instead reveals Huck's moral dilemma isn't settled yet. It represents his default position, the one he was taught practically since birth. His ability to convince the police officers that he wasn't harboring Jim partially came from the fact that Huck is trying to convince himself as well. We see that through his own words, because he believes them to a certain extent.
The tone of Huckleberry's ramblings shows how conflicted he is after he is able to process his rebellion against his old morals. Huck is not introspective and curious to find what he believes, he is paranoid and ashamed. This is exemplified in a phrase at the beginning of the paragraph: “I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well that I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me to try to learn to do right” (Twain). In the absence of his biological father, or mother-figure, Miss Watson, Huck takes on this role to scold himself for something he doesn't even know he doesn't believe in. His defeatist attitude shows his disciplinary tone towards himself. This is continued until the end of the paragraph: “I was stuck. I couldn't answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't bother no more about it” (Twain). Of course, he does bother about it later in the novel, but this shows that he is trying to avoid the problem; he is afraid of himself.
Finally, this theme begins to take shape in the middle of the paragraph, where Huck reaches an epiphany: he would feel the same way even if he made the opposite decision. Huck rambles:
s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up, would you feel better than what you do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad -- I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? (Twain)
He realizes, for the wrong reasons, that it wouldn't be a big problem to not turn in Jim. He realizes that he isn't feeling bad because he did the wrong thing, but because he is conflicted. This demonstrates that Huck is taking the first step of moral independence by giving credence to his own ideas.
The features in Huck's ramblings show his inner conflict surrounding blacks and contributes to the larger theme of becoming morally independent from one's upbringing during adolescence. Almost everyone goes through this turmoil, surrounded by family or scavenging for themselves. But Twain having Huck be completely isolated from his family lets us, the audience, focus on his inner conflict, a conflict that everyone should go through. Becoming your own person is what everyone should strive to accomplish, and you don't have to fake your own death to do it.