What Violence in Huckleberry Finn means So Far

I must be perfectly honest here – we are given no concrete meaning of the violence so far.  I have a few guesses, but they are grounded in the fact that they have been senseless!

The two great acts of violence so far in the novel have been Buck’s murder in the long drawing family feud and Bogg’s public murder all but for drunkenly berating a man.  These two have corresponding patterns in that they are done in cold-blood, without a sense of concrete moral justification, and that they are the narratives few but strongest moments of solemnity and darkness.  Huck describes these acts with critical detachment – the most that Huck explicitly tells us about his opinions are not so that they are right or wrong, but they deeply emotionally have moved him.  Huck cries as he covers Buck’s face, as we are told because he was a friend and good to Huck.  And in a moment with a powerful emotional appeal, Bogg is left bleeding and gasping, with his daughter, who came too late to help, crying helplessly at his side, and a bible on his chest rising and falling slowly with his last breaths of air.

Violence has not been wholly deemed immoral or without justification, meaning that there are times that they can be explained, if not justified.  But Huck nor Twain explicitly comment further on the moral standings of the violence, which makes it a hard read as to what they mean.  However, given that they are done recklessly, Twain may be commenting on just that – that violence is without sense, in the times of pre-civil war America at the very least.  That men have been perpetuating not only murder, but acts of ill-will, without critically asking the purpose.