Huck Finn Essay

Huck Finn Essay

  • Submitted By: totallyaws
  • Date Submitted: 05/02/2013 5:57 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 544
  • Page: 3
  • Views: 168

Racism in Huckleberry Finn

The Novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, addresses the issues of Racism and prejudice through the characters of Huck Finn, the protagonist of the story and Jim, a run-away slave who escaped from his owner Miss Watson. Mark forms the standards of society early on, and has Huck fail to meet them and go against them throughout the entire novel to show a formal change in Society’s views.
Prejudice is seen throughout the novel in how other characters choose to treat Huck. He is portrayed as an average boy if the novel’s time, full of mischief and wonder. Huck’s Society labels him as “uncivilized” because of his abusive drunk of a father. “Pap got too handy with his hick’ry and I couldn’t stand it. I was all over with welts” (37). Huck’s father is the true uncivilized one here, an alcoholic and a racist. Yet, Society still considers impolite because he doesn’t wear shoes, doesn’t always go to school and sometimes smokes. Society stereotypes Huck just because of his physical appearance when truly, he is the one to be more cultured and respectful than anyone else. Huck learns to respect Jim, a run-away slave which allows him to see this failure in society and understand what must happen in the future. Huck learns a very important lesson in civility which makes Huck more mature than any adult he comes across.
Jim runs away from his owner Miss Watson, even though punishment for such a crime would be as bad as a beating or even death. This is because Miss Watson or anyone else for that matter would never give Jim the time of day to listen to his true reason for running away in the first place. “Miss Watson – she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she alwuz said she wouldn’ sell me down to Orleans, even though she could git eight hund’d dollars for me” (55). Using Jim, Twain shows just how cruel any human can be and how society allowed for such cruelty to occur. Twain also uses Jim to show how...

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