Adventures Of Huck Finn Essay

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Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel about a

young boy’s coming of age in the Missouri of the mid-1800’s. The main

character, Huckleberry Finn, spends much time in the novel floating down

the Mississippi River on a raft with a runaway slave named Jim. Before he

does so, however, Huck spends some time in the fictional town of St.

Petersburg where a number of people attempt to influence him.

Before the novel begins, Huck Finn has led a life of absolute

freedom. His drunken and often missing father has never paid much

attention to him; his mother is dead and so, when the novel begins, Huck is

not used to following any rules. The book’s opening finds Huck living with

the Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson. Both women are fairly old

and are really somewhat incapable of raising a rebellious boy like Huck

Finn. Nevertheless, they attempt to make Huck into what they believe will

be a better boy. Specifically, they attempt, as Huck says, to "sivilize" him.

This process includes making Huck go to school, teaching him various

religious facts, and making him act in a way that the women find socially

acceptable. Huck, who has never had to follow many rules in his life, finds

the demands the women place upon him constraining and the life with them

lonely. As a result, soon after he first moves in with them, he runs away. He

soon comes back, but, even though he becomes somewhat comfortable

with his new life as the months go by, Huck never really enjoys the life of

manners, religion, and education that the Widow and her sister impose

upon him.

Huck believes he will find some freedom with Tom Sawyer. Tom is a boy of

Huck’s age who promises Huck and other boys of the town a life of

adventure. Huck is eager to join Tom Sawyer’s Gang because he feels that

doing so will allow him to escape the somewhat boring life he leads with

the Widow Douglas. Unfortunately, such an escape does not occur. Tom

Sawyer promises much—robbing stages, murdering and ransoming

people, kidnaping beautiful women—but none of this comes to pass. Huck

finds out too late that Tom’s adventures are imaginary: that raiding a

caravan of "A-rabs" really means terrorizing young children on a Sunday

school picnic, that stolen "joolry" is nothing more than turnips or rocks.

Huck is disappointed that the adventures Tom promises are not real and

so, along with the other members, he resigns from the gang.

Another person who tries to get Huckleberry Finn to change is Pap,

Huck’s father. Pap is one of the most astonishing figures in all of American

literature as he is completely antisocial and wishes to undo all of the

civilizing effects that the Widow and Miss Watson have attempted to instill

in Huck. Pap is a mess: he is unshaven; his hair is uncut and hangs like

vines in front of his face; his skin, Huck says, is white like a fish’s belly or

like a tree toad’s. Pap’s savage appearance reflects his feelings as he

demands that Huck quit school, stop reading, and avoid church. Huck is

able to stay away from Pap for a while, but Pap kidnaps Huck three or four

months after Huck starts to live with the Widow and takes him to a lonely

cabin deep in the Missouri woods. Here, Huck enjoys, once again, the

freedom that he had prior to the beginning of the book. He can smoke,

"laze around," swear, and, in general, do what he wants to do. However, as

he did with the Widow and with Tom, Huck begins to become dissatisfied

with this life. Pap is "too handy with the hickory" and Huck soon realizes

that he will have to escape from the cabin if he wishes to remain alive. As a

result of his concern, Huck makes it appear as if he is killed in the cabin

while Pap is away, and leaves to go to a remote island in the Mississippi

River, Jackson’s Island.

It is after he leaves his father’s cabin that Huck joins yet another

important influence in his life: Miss Watson’s slave, Jim. Prior to Huck’s

leaving, Jim has been a minor character in the novel—he has been shown

being fooled by Tom Sawyer and telling Huck’s fortune. Huck finds Jim on

Jackson’s Island because the slave has run away—he has overheard a

conversation that he will soon be sold to New Orleans. Soon after joining

Jim on Jackson’s Island, Huck begins to realize that Jim has more talents

and intelligence than Huck has been aware of. Jim knows "all kinds of

signs" about the future, people’s personalities, and weather forecasting.

Huck finds this kind of information necessary as he and Jim drift down the

Mississippi on a raft. As important, Huck feels a comfort with Jim that he

has not felt with the other major characters in the novel. With Jim, Huck

can enjoy the best aspects of his earlier influences. As does the Widow,

Jim allows Huck security, but Jim is not as confining as is the Widow. Like

Tom Sawyer, Jim is intelligent but his intelligence is not as intimidating or

as imaginary as is Tom’s. As does Pap, Jim allows Huck freedom, but he

does it in a loving, rather than an uncaring, fashion. Thus, early, in their

relationship on Jackson’s Island, Huck says to Jim, "This is nice. I wouldn’t

want to be nowhere else but here." This feeling is in marked contrast with

Huck’s feelings concerning other people in the early part of the novel where

he always is uncomfortable and wishes to leave them.

At the conclusion of chapter 11 in The Adventures of Huckleberry

Finn, Huck and Jim are forced to leave Jackson’s Island because Huck

discovers that people are looking for the runaway slave. Prior to leaving,

Huck tells Jim, "They’re after us." Clearly, the people are after Jim, but

Huck has already identified with Jim and has begun to care for him. This

stated empathy shows that the two outcasts will have a successful and

rewarding friendship as they drift down the river as the novel continues.

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

 

There is a major argument among literary critics whether Huckleberry Finn,

by Mark Twain, is or is not a racist novel. The question boils down to the

depiction of Jim, the black slave, and to the way he is treated by Huck and

other characters. The use of the word "nigger" is also a point raised by

some critics, who feel that Twain uses the word too much and too loosely.

Mark Twain never presents Jim in a negative light. He does not show Jim

as a drunkard, as a mean person or as a cheat. This is in contrast to the

way Huck’s (white) father is depicted, whom Twain describes using all of

the above characterizations and more. We see Jim as a good friend, a man

devoted to his family and loyal to his companions.

He is, however, very naive and superstitious. Some critics say that Twain is

implying that all blacks have these qualities. When Jim turns to his magic

hairball for answers about the future, we see that he does believe in some

foolish things. But all the same, he is visited by both blacks and whites to

use the hairball’s powers. This type of naivete was abundant at the time

and found among all races—the result of a lack of proper education. So the

depiction of Jim is not negative in the sense that Jim is stupid and inferior,

and in this aspect of the story clearly there is no racism intended.

It is next necessary to analyze the way white characters treat Jim

throughout the book. Note that what the author felt is not the way most

characters act around Jim, and his feelings are probably only shown

through Huck. In the South during that period, black people were treated as

less than humans, and Twain needed to portray this. The examples of the

way Jim is denigrated: by being locked up, having to hide his face in the

daytime and how he is generally derided, are necessary for historical

accuracy. So, Mark Twain had to display Jim’s treatment in this manner,

even if it is not the way he felt.

Huck, however, does not treat Jim as most whites do. Huck looks at Jim as

a friend, and by the end of their journey, disagrees with society’s notion that

blacks are inferior. There are two main examples of this in the story. The

first one is where Huck is disgusted by Jim’s plans to steal his own

children, who are "someone else’s property." While Huck is still racist here,

Twain has written the scene in a way that ridicules the notion that

someone’s children can actually be the property of a stranger because the

father is black. The second example is where Huck doesn’t tell Jim’s

whereabouts, which would return Jim to slavery, and instead chooses to

"go to Hell" for his decision. This is again Twain making a mockery of

Southern values, that it is a sin to be kind to black people.

Another reason that is given to say this novel is racist is the use of the word

"nigger." This is not a good reason because this is how blacks were

referred to then. To have used the word Negro or African-American would

have taken away from the story’s impact and make it sound stupid. If Twain

wanted to write an historically accurate book, as he did, then the inclusion

of this word is totally necessary.

These claims that Huckleberry Finn is racist are not simply attempts to

damage the image of a great novel. They come from people who are hurt

by racism and don’t like seeing it in any context. However, they must

realize that this novel and its author are not racist, and the purpose of the

story is to prove black equality.

 

 

Racism in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

In recent years, there has been increasing discussion of the seemingly

racist ideas expressed by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn. In some

extreme cases the novel has even been banned by public school systems

and censored by public libraries. The basis for these censorship campaigns

has been the depiction of one of the main characters in Huckleberry Finn,

Jim, a black slave. Jim, is a "typical" black slave who runs away from his

"owner" Miss Watson. At...

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