Social Responsibility 1V

At first everyone at the hospital is treating Jim very poorly and even go as far as saying they want to hang him.  The doctor defends him, not necessarily in a way that indicates that Jim is a good human being but as a helpful nigger.  Then Jim is being kept chained up.  All of this was to expected for whenever Jim would eventually get caught, because nobody is going to treat Jim as good as Huck treated him, but it is certainly sad to see him being reduced to a captive like that, again.  Tom gets all fired up when he finds out what's going on and tries to convince everyone that Jim really has been freed.  This may just be because Tom really enjoys dramatic speeches and riling himself up about things, but I also think he feels like he owes Jim and really does care about him, just not as much as Huck does obviously because Huck and Jim have shared a bonding experience like none other. Eventually we find out that Miss Watson really did set Jim free in her will which shows that she did care about him more than anyone thought. When they unchain Jim, Tom gives Jim forty dollars for patiently waiting on Huck and Tom, and that shows how everything has sort of come full circle because when the duke and the dauphin sold Jim they sold him for forty dollars.  The final moment demonstrating social responsibility in the novel is when Jim reveals that Huck's father has been dead for a while and he never told him.  I guess even though Huck hates his pap Jim still wanted to protect him from the actual reality of seeing his dead father on the floor.  All of these characters ended up being good at protecting each other even though we never would have expected it in the beginning-because of social responsibility, and because of plain old friendship.

Social Responsibility 111

In these chapters, Huck really has to figure out what he believes in in order to make the best decision.  After the dauphin sells Jim back into slavery, Huck is completely overwhelmed and really has a multitude of options he had to decide between.  In his society, he has technically stolen Jim in the first place because African Americans were thought of as objects.  But he knows that Jim is a person, and a really great person at that, so he decides once and for all that he'll stick with Jim, will try to get him back, and won't attempt to return him to Miss Watson.  It drains him emotionally to accept these things because even though he is doing what we think of as the true right thing, the people around him consider his actions terrible sins.  On page 242 he actually says "All right, then, I'll go to hell" when he finally decides he will no longer attempt to "reform" (turn Jim in).
Later when Huck is reunited with Tom Sawyer and they develop a plan to rescue Jim, there's kind of a funny example of different views on social responsibility.  Tom makes up this extravagant plan that involves stealing many things in order to successfully break Jim out, but he says it's okay to steal them because they need them.  Yet when Huck steals a watermelon on his own just because he feels like it, Tom freaks out.  "He made a mighty fuss, one day, after that, when I stole a watermelon from the nigger patch and eat it; and he made me go and give the niggers a dime, without telling them what it was for."  In Tom's mind it's horrific to steal something if you don't need it, but he's completely at peace with the concept of stealing things in general.

Social Responsibility 11

I thought Chapter 28 was a good example of social responsibility in a pure, innocent form.  Mary Jane is crying and Huck feels like he should go talk to her about what's wrong, which is an example of him demonstrating his responsibility in and of itself.  He is not necessarily good with people but he tries with her.  He tells her, "Miss Mary Jane, you can't abear to see people in trouble, and I can't-most always.  Tell me about it." Mary Jane is, of course, upset at the fact that the duke and the dauphin broke up the slave family and she knows they will never see each other again.  Her innocence is outcrying at the despair of the situation, and this is the final straw that causes Huck to finally come clean and admit that the duke and the dauphin are frauds. It certainly took him long enough, but the point is that he told her in the first place which is something I honestly didn't expect him to do.  Even though he did in in a somewhat cowardly way by devising an entire secret plan to get it done, it's still a huge step.  I feel like a big thing that comes out of this that will help him to listen more to his conscience in the future is that Mary Jane thinks of him as an actual hero after he tells her the truth.  She tells him she will never forget him, will think of him often, and will pray for him, and for a boy without any family someone thinking of him so fondly is certainly a huge deal.

Social Responsibility 1

As Huck and Jim get closer to what they think is Cairo, Jim grows increasingly excited and Huck grows increasingly anxious.  Huck feels an extreme sense of guilt as it kind of dawns on him that he is essentially helping a criminal, from society's point of view.  On page 113, Huck is thinking to himself and finally decides what he truly thinks about the situation.  "S'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up.  Would you felt better than what you do now?  No, says I, I'd feel bad-I'd feel just the same way I do now."  Either way Huck is going to experience guilt and, for now at least, he chooses to continue on his journey with Jim.
In Chapter 18, Huck stays with the Grangerford family for a while.  I thought this part was interesting because he meets this family and the first thing he finds out is that they are in a feud with another family, the Shepherdsons.  Because the feud has been going on for so long, each family feels like they have a social responsibility to kill the other.  It doesn't matter why the feud started any more-they are bred to hate each other and are taught that it is the right thing to do.  When Sophia Grangerford runs off with a Shepherdson boy, it causes such a stir that it results in a full-on battle and the death of two Grangerfords.
These two specific scenes show social responsibility in a different light than you would usually expect.  The technical "right" thing to do in both situations is not necessarily the obvious choice.  Turning in your friend and killing people you have a grudge against are both examples of what specific societies felt are a responsibility, but they're things that our modern day society would definitely consider wrong.  And because Huck has never cared much for doing things just because he is "socially obligated" to do so, he enters both of these situations with a different point of view (that is actually more similar to a modern point of view), and he is the one who would be considered wrong for the decisions he is making.

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