Racism in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Uploaded by Boming on Nov 26, 2007
Racism is an issue that has been around for a very long time. From way back to the time of the Egyptians and Hebrews, to the Middle Passage, to right up until the American Civil War, slavery has existed, and we still feel the effects of it today. Mark Twain wrote a controversial book about slavery and racism, called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Many believe that it is racist, but, after further examination, the book is the opposite. When the book starts out, the character Jim does seem to be portrayed from a racist vies, but as the story goes on, he is shown to be more complex and round. The King and the Duke, who are the antagonists of the novel and are kind of flat, but they are disliked and racist. A racist author would most likely have made the antagonists anti-racist. Huck, as well, was not really racist and a racist author would have made the protagonist racist. Despite the fact that Mark Twain was alive during a time when racism and slavery were common, events and dialogue in his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn suggest that he was not racist and he disagree with slavery.
Jim starts off as the stereotypical, lying superstition, foolish black slave. Twain paints the picture of a superstitious slave when he writes about Tom and Huck tricking Jim into thinking he was “ridden by witches” by moving his hat while he was asleep: “Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the other niggers… Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string and that it was a charm the devil gave him…” (16). However, as the story progresses, Twain shows the reader that blacks are not inferior. He shows that Jim is kind and caring after losing Huck in the fog: “…is dat you Huck?... It’s too good for true, honey… de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!” (87). In that same scene, Jim figures out that Huck tricked him and scolds him: “…I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin’ ‘bout wuz how you could make a fool uv old Jim wid a lie. Dat truck duh is trash; en trash is what people is...