| Summary: | 碩士 === 淡江大學 === 西洋語文研究所 === 90 === The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are two Mark Twain’s remarkable novels that have attracted widespread attention in modern American Literature. In Twain’s acute portraiture, his prominent characters Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn manifest the cognitive moral development in the process of social interaction. The main issue of this thesis is to focus on the process of adolescents’ cognitive moral development. The thesis begins with a critical review of the two characters and Lawrence Kohlberg and Carl Gilligan’s theory of moral development. In Chapter Two, the exploration centers upon the environmental influence on Tom Sawyer’s cognition formation and moral reasoning. In Chapter three I shall dwell upon Huck’s initial conflict of cognition moral reasoning: Pap’s self-interest philosophy versus the widow’s ethics of care. In Chapter four will be examined the relationship between Huck and Jim. For Huck, Jim is the catalyst for moral growth. It’s Jim’s friendship and humanity that make Huck understand love and compassion, thus breaking apart from the perverted social code. In the last Chapter, I conclude the ethical contrast between Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Hopefully through my research, this thesis can somehow contribute to the understanding of the process of adolescents’ moral development not only in Tom and Huck in particular, but also in other literary works in general.
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