Essay on Huck Finn

Huck Finn is not racist: It is a profound social statement on the inhumanity of slavery and of every individual’s born right to freedom.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a Mark Twain classic, wonderfully demonstrates pre-Civil War attitudes about blacks held by whites. Twain demonstrates these attitudes through the actions and the speech of Huckleberry Finn, the narrator, and Jim, Miss Watson's slave. These two main characters share a relationship that progresses from an acquaintance to a friendship throughout the novel. It is through this relationship that Mark Twain gives his readers the realization of just how different people's attitudes were before the Civil War. Twain also reveals the negative attitudes of whites toward blacks by the cruel manner in which Jim is treated with such inferiority.

This is exactly the kind of behavior that twain didn’t like. However, the main theme in this book is breaking free. He urges his readers to do the right thing, not necessarily what everyone else is doing. He illustrates this ideal with Huck. Most everyone else thought of Jim, along with blacks in general, as something less than human. Huck knew this was wrong, and his actions followed this when he rescued Jim. Main characters Huckleberry Finn Huck is the narrator of the story and for the most part is honest to us, the readers. He dreads the rules and conformities of society such as religion, school, and everything else that will eventually make him civilized. A big debate surrounds Huck on whether he changes or not throughout the story. Huck, in the beginning, seems very set in the south’s anti-black ways, however, Huck states that he will go to hell to keep Jim out of slavery. At this point it seems like he does change, but at the end of the book, Huck plays yet another joke on Jim and seems as though any change was temporary. Huck has little sense of humor, which is ironical, considering the book is satirical. Twain has also been criticized about Huck’s character, in that it seems as though Huck knows too much for his age. In one of the movies Huck was about seventeen, in another he was about eight. I figure from the book that Huck is

Throughout all of his adventures Jim shows compassion as his most prominent trait. He makes the reader aware of his many superstitions and Jim exhibits gullibility in the sense that he Jim always assumes the other characters in the book will not take advantage of him. One incident proving that Jim acts naive occurs halfway through the novel, when the Duke first comes into the scene "By right I am a duke! Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that..." In the novel, Huck Finn, one can legitimately prove that compassion, superstitious and gullibility illustrate Jim's character perfectly.

Most people often assume that the aim of civilizations is for humanity to function together, jointly and cooperatively, so that humans produce and experience the benefits of moral people who live and act together. However, in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the reverse is true. The swap in societal stereotypes is apparent in the king and the duke’s production of the Royal Nonesuch as well as Huck and Jim’s pleasant journey down the Mississippi after escaping the family feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepardsons. Leading up to the performance of the Royal Nonesuch, the king and the duke

-Jim keeps the same five cents on a string around his neck as the five cents Tom left for the candles

"…Then I'll go to Hell." P.215. Finally, after developing a good relationship, Huck realizes that Jim is a person and that society is wrong about him. "I knowed he was white inside…" P.276.

Because blacks are uneducated, he sees them as stupid and stubborn. He frequently tells stories to Jim, mainly about foreign kings and history. When Jim disagrees with Huck, Jim becomes very stubborn and refuses to listen to explanations. Huck eventually concludes, "You can't learn a nigger to argue". Jim also seems to accept that whites are naturally superior to blacks. He knows that Huck is far smarter than he is. When Tom Sawyer and Huck are planning an elaborate breakout for Jim, he allows their outrageous plan to continue because they "was white folks and knowed better than him". This mutual acceptance of whites as superior to blacks shows how deeply rooted slavery was in Southern culture. This made it very difficult for Huck to help Jim. When Tom Sawyer says he will help free Jim, Huck is very disappointed. He had never thought that Tom Sawyer, of all people, would be a "nigger stealer". Huck had always considered Tom respectable and educated, and yet Tom was prepared to condemn himself to damnation by freeing a runaway slave. This confuses Huck greatly, who no longer knows what to think about his situation with Jim. When Huck is forced to make a decision regarding slavery, he invariably sides with his emotions. Huck does not turn Jim in, despite having several chances. His best chance to do what he believes is right comes as they are rafting towards Cairo, Illinois. Huck finally

Two chapters into the story and Twain has already placed Huck and his friend Tom found themselves sneaking past a man in the kitchen Huck referred to him as, “Miss Watson’s big nigger, named Jim” (11). This is when Jim and Huck’s view on Jim is first introduced. Huck made it very clear on how he viewed him, Jim was nothing but Miss Watson's unimportant property in his eyes. After the two boys got away without being spotted Tom decided to pull a prank on Jim, Huck did not make any effort to stop him. The way Huck allowed Tom to humiliate Jim shows that he does not see him as a person worthy of respect due to the color of his skin. Jim was just an average slave, and his feelings never crossed Huck’s mind.

Also as they go more south for example when they are in Arkansas the duke, the dauphin, and Huck speak on his behalf because of the limited rights slaves have in the south. The way Jim talks also is a major factor in the level of hatred in the eyes of the southern people. This is so because Jim talks very uneducated level which puts him in place in the views of the people who believe in slavery and if Jim were to talk smarter or whiter he would be hated even more because they people despise educated slaves. Along with Jim, Hucks language shows his social class and color. Huck was provided with little education and brought up under the Widow Douglas and Aunt Polly who were good people. His past is shown every time he speaks because his thoughts are expressed clearly and exactly how he intended to say it. Although he has errors every now and then, he is still considered the better type of white, unlike his father who as described by Huck was the worse white there was. As a result of Huck’s language he was more respected than and not as pampered with as Jim and some of the other characters. Along with Jim and Huck, Huck’s pap and the Duke and Duchess’s language reflects their race and their level of education. Huck’s pap was a

At this point in the novel, Huck still holds the belief that blacks are essentially different from whites. Also, Huck's conscience constantly reminds him that he is an abolitionist for helping Jim run away from his owner. Huck does not see that Jim is looking for freedom just as he is.

Jim’s words had a big affect on Huck, who realizes that Jim is a person, and that his feelings can be hurt.

Mark Twain has always been one of the most controversial authors of all time. Though in recent years, there has been increasing controversy over the ideas expressed in his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In some extreme cases the novel has even been banned by public school systems and censored by public libraries. The basis for this censorship is the argument that Mark Twain's book is racist, but in reality Twain was against racism and used this book to make people aware of what was going on in the south. He did this by using the regional dialect of the south, showing the attitude of the other characters in the novel toward black people, and showing his depiction of black characters. If one were to "read between the lines"

    Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is perhaps one of the most controversial novels the North American Continent has ever produced.  Since its publication more than a hundred years ago controversy has surrounded the book.  The most basic debate surrounding Twain's masterpiece is whether the book's language and the character of Jim are presented in a racist manner.  Many have called for the book to be banned from our nation's schools and libraries.  Mark Twain's novel is about a young boy who was raised in the south before slavery was abolished, a place where racism and bigotry were the fabric of every day life.  The novel is the account of how Huck Finn, who is a product of these

The first interaction between Huck and Jim in the novel is when Huck carelessly allows Tom Sawyer to hang Jim’s hat from a tree, after Jim caught Huck sneaking out with Tom in the middle of the night. Tom sees Jim as an easy target to play a prank on and Huck permits the uncivil prank to occur because his racial supremacy views Jim as just a meaningless slave. The prank ended with Jim believing in witchcraft and telling all of his fellow slaves about the occurrence. In reply to the outcome of this prank, Huck criticizes Jim by saying, “Jim was most ruined for a servant because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches.” (Twain 6) This quote exposes an ignorant side of Huck because he is censuring Jim for being frightened, even though he was the one initially who caused Jim to believe in witchcraft. This initial criticism sparks a pattern of Huck’s discrimination towards Jim that is solely based upon race. As the novel proceeds, Huck’s hypocritical actions are exposed when he seeks Jim for a “hair-ball fortune” after misleadingly saying, “Ms. Watson’s nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it.” (Twain 17) This ambiguous event is deceptive because Huck pays Jim to give him a fortune, but he also criticizes Jim by repeatedly referring to him as a “nigger”. The repetitive