Racism And Hate In Huck Finn

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.

Slavery was not a word that was unknown in the United States of America; the word was at the tip of almost everyone’s tongue, only it came with many names. After the civil war, slavery became more pronounced for the black people. The south then thought something ought to be done and passed laws called the black codes which begun the limitation of blacks’ rights and separated them from the whites; white supremacy began. Before, these laws would have been unnecessary because most of the black people were slaves and they were already segregated in public places like schools and theatres. In 1866, Congress did not like this and they responded to these laws by putting a stop to it. Republicans had managed to begin reconstruction on the society and understand the black community. But in 1877 things took a turn for the worse when the Democratic parties recovered control and stopped the progress of reconstruction. This in turn caused the reverse of all the progress made in the past few years to understand the black community; they lost their rights to hold political seats, vote and generally participate as though they were members of the community. Slowly but surely, the south started to restore their racially unfair laws. The aim of the laws? To ensure segregation and alienation of the black community. One of the main powers taken away was the right to vote and they did this by imposing poll taxes, having expensive fees to be paid at the voting booths and

The North thought there shouldn’t be slavery, and the South thought there should be. This ended up causing the South to secede from the Union, which in turn caused the bloodiest war in American history to take place. After the Union won the war and slaves were freed shortly after, there was a great deal of bitterness from the South for a long time. For a long time after slavery was abolished, African Americans still didn’t have many rights. Not until the late 1900s were rights given to them. It took nearly 300 years for African Americans to be treated right, and sometimes they still

When taking a look at Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, racism is a large theme that seems to be reoccurring. What some may think to be racism in Twain's words, can also be explained as, good story telling appropriate to the era the story takes place in.

     In extreme cases the book, Huckleberry Finn, has been banned from some schools because of the depiction of racial tension towards Jim, the black slave, in Huckleberry Finn. This story takes place at a time where slavery was considered moral. Blacks were considered inferior to whites, but Huckleberry challenges the notion that he was raised upon. Through Huckleberry’s adventures Twain expresses his challenge towards civilization’s rules and moral code. One must read between the lines and reach for the meaning in Mark Twain’s subtle literature dialog. If one were to do this that one would realize that it is not racist, but anti-slavery. For someone

With the end of Reconstruction in 1877 white supremacy was still extremely common. White individuals saw themselves as superior to African Americans and people of the lower class. The White politicians had stopped caring about protecting the rights of African Americans. They passed laws which are known as the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow laws separated whites and African Americans in schools, trains, and even water fountains. The Jim Crow Laws allowed white supremacist to discriminate African Americans by just saying that they were separated but still being treated equally. This was not true, the conditions in which the African Americans were being placed in were not at the same quality as the whites. Since the amendments that gave African Americans rights were still enacted White Supremacists often tried to prevent African Americans from exercising their rights. Whites were also more credible than

     In recent years, there has been increasing discussion of the seemingly racist ideas expressed by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In some cases, the novel has been banned by public school systems and even censored by public libraries. Along with the excessive use of the word, “nigger,” the basis for this blatant censorship has been the portrayal of one of the main characters in Huck Finn, Jim, a black slave who runs away from his owner, Miss Watson. At several points in the novel, Jim's character is described to the reader, and some people have looked upon the presented characterization as racist. However, before one begins to censor a novel it important to distinguish the ideas of the author

to look past conformist and the effects of his environment. Huck was born into a

During this time, slavery was at its lowest. Many African American slaves were moving to the North to gain their freedom and actually feel free for once. Instead, white supremacy was quickly, legally, and violently restored to the New South and they didn’t believe that black slaves

After the abolishment of Slavery by President Lincoln, previous slaves were now able to live their lives as free people but were still constantly faced with difficulties. The main cause of those difficulties were their white neighbors. While African-American were making their ways by earning leadership roles in their communities, they were constantly persecuted, lynched and senselessly killed by white American. White fear had become a pretense to retain their dominance over blacks and lynching and other violence was the most satisfying way of maintaining control . Not only were they continuously brought down by the physical abuse of the whites, they were also unfairly abused by their current court system run the whites.

Many creative people take the matter of equality into their own hands, because the voices of colored people, become silenced under the many societal issues, therefore it takes books like the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and movies like Black Panther to invoke a passion for equality among people. Many people of color were, and still today are discriminated against, throughout the years people have not been very concerned with taking action. The voices of the colored population have been muffled by the many other societal issues. People claim it is not as important for these people to get the justice they deserve as many others require more help than people of color. To give these people a voice it takes subliminal protests by various sources of media. Books, movies, and other sources promoting the rights

As Huck and Jim make their escape down the Mississippi, they encounter various characters that conform to regular society. Critics of Huck Finn argue that it is racist because it portrays African Americans in a bad light and white people as the superior people. Lester states that white people enjoy Huck Finn because the stereotypical portrayal of Jim “permits their own “humanity” to shine with more luster. ”(306) However, when thoroughly analyzing the book, it can be seen that this is not true.

Slavery which at the time was racism was one for whites and blacks in the 1650s. The superior whites at the time were afraid that they would be overruled because there were more slaves than them. They decided to turn the white slaves into servants and just keep blacks to be slaves. Starting in 1650 until 1940, whites felt they should just keep blacks as slaves and let poor whites have more freedom than they used to. Today, whites and blacks work side by side together even though some people do not feel we should be able to. In the book, The Civil Rights Movement (Magill’s Choice) by Salem Press, it stated

African Americans were viewed as considerably less than their white “superiors”. Many rights were not granted to them simply because the skin on their bones had a darker pigmentation than that of the general population of the time. Even respected Black men who were free and lived in the North were not safe. Many were mislead, kidnapped, and sold into

Slavery was ongoing in the southern states. In the 1800’s many white slave owners believed that the African Americans were inferior to them despite the fact that “”all men are created equal”. They were forced into labor and treated like property. The slave owners justified their behavior and believed they acted caring and conscientious to their slaves. Truthfully, however, the slaves were mostly treated very badly, as Fredrick Douglas, a black slave, testifies. There were select groups of white men who realized the abuses of slavery and worked to abolish it. Not many white people admired these abolitionists, but as time went by their support was increased.