In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain writes the novel from Huck's perspective to show that immature people think they are who they are from how they were raised. Huck thought he turned out the way he is because of the way Pap, his father, raised him. Huck shows the effect of his upbringing towards the middle of the book, when he is with the King and the Duke. Finally, Huck begins to overcome this idea that you are who you are based on your upbringing when Huck finds out that Jim has been captured. The rise above Huck's idea shows Twain's central theme that just because someone is who they are because of how they are raised, doesn't make it right to be that way, and a person needs to take responsibility for themselves and who they are.
Huck becomes a pushover who lets people have their own way because of the way his father, Pap, treated him as a child. First, Huck shares to the reader what he learned from being raised by Pap, he says, "If I never learnt nothing else out of Pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way" (142). This is proof of where Huck would get the idea to let people have their own way. Huck wasn't raised to be a good person and to express his own ideas and feelings over someone else's. He was raised that it was easier to live if people had their own way. Once Pap returned back into Huck's life, Huck states that, "He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me" (36). Huck would mostly be beaten when he went against Pap's orders or ideas. Huck learned to let Pap have his own way so he would get beaten less and it was easier to live. Also, Pap took Huck away from his new home and brought him to a cabin where Huck says, "He (Pap) got to going away so much, too, and locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days" (37). This is an example of Huck letting Pap have his own way. Huck was scared that he could have been beaten for resisting his father, so he went along with him to the cabin.