In Chapter One, we are presented with Huck's views on what
happens to you after death and his own personal preference, which, with his child-like
logic, is actually incredibly amusing. Having been biblebashed by the Widow Douglas,
Huck decides that it is more important for him to be where his best friend is. As Widow
Douglas tells him that Tom Sawyer is not going to get to heaven, he personally opts to
go and be with Tom Sawyer. Note how he reaches this
conclusion:
Now she had got a start, and she went on and
told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go
around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much of
it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she
said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to
be together.
Notice how Huck
isn't actually rejecting Christianity. His understanding of religion clearly isn't very
sophisticated. Instead, Huck is just ambivalent towards religion, which represents to
him another aspect of the civilising force of society that he is so desperate to
escape.
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