Lizzie, 

   Your opening paragraph makes the very good point that Huck's experiences have
   to be understood as part of his growing up and that Huck (especially at the 
   start of the novel) is not that far along in that process.  But as Twain says,
   his "sound heart" comes through more and more as the story goes on.  

   Bringing out the conflict between Pap's ideas about how it is permissible to 
   "borrow" things and the Widow Douglas's sterner point of view about stealing was 
   very good.  That shows that, even among the big influences on Huck's conscience, 
   there is disagreement and "deformation" (I'm referring to Pap's self-serving 
   rationalization of his own stealing).  That is especially ironic because the basic 
   conflict Huck has later comes from the fact that everything he has been taught by 
   society (especially the Widow Douglas) about the relation between blacks and whites 
   is predicated on the idea that white people can own slaves as property.  So when
   Huck helps Jim, from that point of view he is stealing and he "knows" stealing 
   is wrong (at least in theory!)  You also do a very good job of pointing out a 
   lot of the hypocrisy of the white society that Twain portrays through your 
   discussion of the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons.  

   The one thing I think you might have done more of is to consider the passages 
   where Huck talks about how he has to overcome his conscience to do something 
   his heart knows is right.  It would have been good, for instance, to look in detail at
   passages like the one on page 66 where Huck is examining his conscience to try to 
   understand why it is telling him what he is doing with Jim is wrong.  You might have 
   used what he said in that conversation with himself to illustrate exactly how the 
   "deformation" arose from Huck's life with the Widow Douglas and how the pangs of 
   conscience he feels are exactly like what we expect from a person having a moral 
   quandary.  The real pain he feels at these moments is what makes it so powerful: 
   He feels genuinely bad for making what we know is the right choice because he thinks 
   it is the wrong choice, based on his upbringing.  It would have been good to show 
   more of exactly how that plays out rather than just describing this in general terms.  
   It's interesting that in fact in almost every (maybe every?) time Huck uses the word 
   "conscience," Twain is showing a new step in this development, so 
   you might have traced that progression in more detail. 


   Your writing is very strong here, with a couple of small exceptions.  Avoid 
   trite statements like "Huck and Jim are a duo for the ages."
     

   Content/Evidence -- A-

   Structure/Mechanics -- A