Zack, 

     Bringing in Kohlberg's three stages of moral development gives your paper an 
   interesting slant, and I think there's a lot of truth in what you are saying.  But
   I don't exactly agree with your statement that Huck's "'deformed conscience,' ... 
   can be understood to represent the social order described in Kohlberg’s Stage Two." 
   It's the "represent" that I'm disagreeing with here: Wouldn't it be more 
   accurate to say that Huck's deformed conscience is a result (or even a tool) of that 
   social order?  His feelings of conscience have been instilled in him by others 
   essentially as a way to maintain that social order.  Also, I think singling out Pap  
   as being primarily responsible for instilling those feelings of conscience in 
   Huck is not correct either.  Although Pap had a role, if you look at passages like 
   the one on page 66 where Huck discusses his feelings of conscience, you can see he's 
   putting a lot of the responsibility on the Widow Douglas and her attempts to "sivilize" him.  
   
     There are a few other passages that you don't consider 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 the passage 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 Miss 
   Watson 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 generally direct and clear, but there are places where you don't use 
   quite the right word, and others where you say things in awkward ways.  At
   the bottom of page 1, I don't think "suppression" (the action of preventing something 
   such as an activity or publication) is exactly the word you want.  I think what 
   you want is closer to "oppression"  (prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control).  
   You introduce "oppression" later, but those two words are just not synonyms as you 
   seem to think on page 2.   Page 2 -- "social normalcies"  isn't good--how about "social 
   norms?"  If you need to repeat a phrase like that it's OK -- don't change just to avoid
   a repetition.   Also from page 2:  "As the journey advances, oppression develops from 
   more than the two’s 'masters'" is confusing.  Which "master" are you referring to
   for Huck? Pap?  How does oppression develop over the course of the trip?  Isn't
   Huck actually getting more and more free, as well as more and more grown-up? 
   

   Content/Evidence -- B

   Structure/Mechanics -- B