Huck is a boy who runs away from home to get away from an abusive drunkard father. He floats down the Mississippi River on a raft. He joins a black man, a runaway slave, and they end up running away together.

This is during slavery, of course. Huck thinks he’s committing a terrible crime by helping a slave escape. He’s been taught that God will punish anyone who helps slaves escape and he really thinks he’s going to go to hell!

But he gets to talking to the slave and realizes that he’s a person too, and he should have rights. He realizes how hard the life of a slave is, and thinks that this shoudn’t be.

So Huck has this conflict between his religious training and his own personal conscience. It’s the best thing about the book!