People grow in many ways throughout their lives. It is the life experiences that people face that help them mature and develop. The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, develops themes with its motifs. In the novel, Huck begins as an ignorant, motherless boy with an abusive drunken father. Huck has decided to fake his death and run away to keep himself safe, along the way he meets Jim, a slave who escaped from the town he previously lived in, and must decide whether or not to help him escape. Considering the moment, this was a monumental moral decision for this guy to make. Huck has to grow up a lot in a short amount of time because of the situations he goes through. The motifs of childhood, lies, and cheating develop the theme of maturation and development in Huck throughout the story. The motif of childhood helps develop the theme of maturation in Huck. Huck had an abusive father as a child. He's dealing with a drunken father who can't take care of himself, let alone a child. Unfortunately, this has made Huck realize that he has to grow up in order to support himself. Huck describes his father and says, "His hair was long and matted and greasy, and it hung down, and you could see it shining as if it were behind the vines." (28). Huck describes his father's appearance as if he hadn't bathed in weeks and couldn't take care of him. Huck faked his own death, which made him mature. He had to plan and make sure every detail was perfect. He had to realize that the world is not perfect and that he had to mature and make sure everything was perfect. Welcoming a freed slave made him mature. This made his childhood short, due to the fact that he had to make such a heavy moral decision. It had to do what's in the middle of the paper as it grew throughout the story. The theme of development and maturation is developed through Huck by the motifs Childhood, lies and disadvantages. Huck's childhood is anything but normal, he is forced to grow and mature very quickly due to the situations he faces. He finds himself the mature Huck because he must lie to save himself and Jim from their old lives. Meeting the king and duke also helped Huck grow and mature through the experiences he learned from them. Huck has to grow in many ways and throughout the novel. Huck experiences many things with Jim that help him grow and change. He matures so much over the course of the entire story. Maturing is a natural thing, everyone does it. The more situations a person goes through, the more mature they become. Works Cited Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn's Adventure. New York: Penguin Group, 1985. Print.