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Slavery and Racism Shown in Huckleberry Finn

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In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain establishes three very prominent themes. These themes include racism and slavery, intellectual and moral education, and the hypocrisy of civilized society. The most dominant theme, racism and slavery, is recognized when the main character feels that he is doing the wrong thing in helping a runaway slave. It is also recognized in the passage where the main character talks to a boy who compares a black slave’s worth to two-hundred dollars. Twain used the theme racism and slavery in an attempt to convince southerners to do the right thing despite what society dictates and to show the South that everyone should have equal rights. Racism and slavery is not only a central theme in the Twain’s novel, it is still alive and shown in the form of hate crimes performed by notorious racist groups.
The main character and narrator, Huck Finn, is a boy who has been raised in the southern United States prior to the Civil War. Racism and Slavery, which can be defined as the poor treatment of or violence against a people because of their race, is the source of a lot of turmoil for Huck (www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism). Huck’s conscience is always being contorted emotionally because he feels he should follow the common racist ways that Southern society has taught him, but his best friend is a runaway slave. Torn in his racist ways that tell him that Jim, Miss Watson’s slave who Huck thinks should be turned in, he decides

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