Expository Essay Fear is an interesting and hard to understand emotion.

Nevertheless, its one of the most common amongst the human race. Everyone has their own way of reacting to fear. These responses can vary from person to person. In my opinion, lying is the most fascinating response to fear. This is demonstrated by Huck in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and personal observation of one of my classmates. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck, the protagonist, and Jim, a runaway slave, float down the Mississippi River on a raft they made. At one point in the story, Huck and Jim come across a couple of men looking for any runaway slaves. Instinctively, Huck feels he should turn Jim in because of the way Huck was raised in the south; runaway slaves were considered criminals. However, if Huck were to turn Jim in, Huck would also get in trouble for carrying a runaway slave. Huck had reached a fork in the road. What would happen if the men find out that Huck is carrying a runaway slave? Huck was frightened by the situation and right away told the men that he had no slaves on board the raft, clearly lying. Huck was scared, and his first reaction was to avert telling the truth. This lie saved his to-be best friend, Jim and in the long run, this seemingly white lie benefited the two adventurers. Be that as it may, lying does not always lead to a favorable outcome. There was once a classmate of mine who had not studied for a test because of the lack of time he had to finish his work. As a result, he got very panicky and fearful that his extraordinary grade would be critically affected. A strange cacoethes overcame him and he decided to cheat and steal answers from another student. My classmate handed in a test that he claimed to be his work and thoughts; not only did he steal and cheat, but he also lied; my classmate decides to avoid the truth in order to save his grade.

Both Huck in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and my classmate reacted to their fear by lying. Huck lied to save his friend, and my classmate lied to save his grade. Although the two characters did not share the same effects of their lying, the reactions of the two were the same. Ultimately, lying is a very common response to the human emotion, fear.