Liar, Liar, Huck on Fire!

Mark Twain once stated "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." This statement reflects the approach he took to life and in his books. He condones the use of lies; it can be assumed that he does not believe that one should ever lie. In his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn he criticizes American culture by employing a plethora of instances where his characters lies to demonstrate that Americans will ignore moral teachings in order to accomplish a goal. The lies employed in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be grouped into three categories: "white lies", lies conflicting with morality, and lies based on greed.

Throughout the novel Twain implements simple, innocent lies that are told with the intentions of helping rather than hurting people, these lies are told more as "white lies" rather than as serious hurtful lies. "'It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He's ben shot in de back. I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan' look at his face - it's too gashly.'"(50) This statement was said by Jim who was trying to protect Huck from seeing the image of the man in the river who is later revealed as Pap, Huck's father. Even thought this isn't a hurtful lie, it still is a lie. Twain is attempting to demonstrate the ease that people have with lying by having Jim hide the truth from Huck and fall on his instinct to lie instead. In several parts of the novel Huck would be inches away from his true identity getting discovered but he would never allow that to happen, he would come up with elaborate lies to ensure that his secret would be kept. In a conversation he had with a woman from one of the towns they stopped at Huck introduced himself as Sara Williams but when later asked again he said his name was Mary Williams, the obvious mistake caused questions from the woman which he simply answered "'Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name. Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary."'(59) Huck spins new tales as old ones are discovered to be false. Even when he knows he's caught, he doesn't budge. Huck is good at coming up with another spur-of-the-moment lie in attempt to keep the real truth hidden. This is Twain demonstrating that even in the smallest of incidents people will go to great lengths to cover the truth. Even when it is seemingly minor people use lying and deception to avoid being reprimanded for their actions. Twain puts several examples of this in the novel one being when Huck puts the dead snake's body in Jim's bed and Jim gets bit by the snake's mate. Instead of Huck telling Jim the truth about his actions he decides to "slid out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes." (58) Huck's actions may not have been a spoken lie but the act of deceiving Jim can still be constituted as a lie, because the truth was being kept from him for Huck "warn't going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it."(58) The use of all of these "white lies" show how often people ignore what is right in hopes of protecting themselves.

As well as applying white lies in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain throws in conflict with the moral teachings Huck has had since birth and what his conscience is telling him since he ran away with Jim. Twain is criticizing American society's twisted views of right and wrong and by having Huck wrestle with his conscience he is showing that the social morals are unjust. However, Huck struggles to find his own balance between the different systems of morality he sees around him. He has to deal with the strict law and approval of society as well as the rules of survival that he's picked up from his dad.

Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn't anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more - then he reckoned it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. (65-66)

Here, Huck has a creative