How Does Huck Finn Show Racism

Huck and Jim, they had a same superstition hobby. This made their relationship closer. At that time, Huck was still pretending the Blacks were the slaves and properties who could breathe and speak. The society produced the idea of devaluing slaves, and Huck was born and lived in this environment. Therefore, at the beginning of the story, Huck treated Jim as others did, until they talked about the divination.

The relationship between Huck and Jim seems like a very unlikely one, they live in a society which wants to keep them apart but they still meet both in the quest of a common goal. Jim becomes a father figure to Huck and get so excited when he finds Huck again he, “grabbed me and hugged me, he was so glad so see me. ”(Twain 115) Even though they have different color skin and society feels that they should be apart they still for a familial bond that can’t be broken.

Huck Finn was written when the use of the word was used without second thought in times of cruel treatment of blacks. Huck Finn depicts a time when blacks were as mere property but as things without emotions or personalities and not treated as people, For instance, Jim is initially known only as Miss Watson’s property. He escapes from being looked at as property, even sold—to most likely a more inhuman family. The racist southern attitudes are most present in the character of Huck Finn himself, and how he cares for the runaway African American

As a young boy, it's easy to get attached to someone or something. However, in Huck's case it was called loyalty. The reward must’ve crossed his mind and made him think twice about hiding a slave, but instead he thought that Jim was more important. Jim really captured Huck’s emotion in a way where it would’ve been hard for Jim to be the narrator and carry the same effect. It was weird to Jim that Huck was willing to help him because Huck had a good life. He was brought up, educated, fed, and dressed. These were what most kids back then didn’t get. Jim was also Miss Watson’s slave so he worked for and around Huck. Furthermore, we can see that Huck wanted to turn in Jim on multiple occasions. He was educated that every black person was at a lower level than him and that their purpose was to make the white peoples lives easier. Pap also helped make the story much more interesting, he helped Huck decide to run away and bump into Jim. It was a coincidence that they met together, but we can easily see that Samuel Clemens has an eye for detail and made sure that everything in the book had a purpose for

What’s ironic about this quote is Huck’s worried about doing slaveholders wrong, but does not realize that the children really belong to their parents. Racism has a negative effect on Huck because he only see’s him as a black man not a human being who’s fighting for his wife and children. One foggy night, Jim and Huck get separated from each other. Huck tries to paddle back, but the fog is too thick. After a while Huck and Jim finally reunite, but Huck selfishly does a penurious trick on Jim.

Huck and Jim have a dynamic relationship for the story that they are in. In a situation that may not have been plausible for that time period Twain manages to show how in the beginning where Huck sees Jim as a slave, what society chooses to interpret him as. Lesser, black, worthless, and less than human. Huck in the beginning does not respect him and he even sees Huck as maybe slightly dumb or easily tricked. However as time goes on and the story begins to unfold Huck begins to see Jim in a new light. He begins to see him as an equal someone who he shares experiences with and someone who he wants to protect. And in society that is morally incorrect for Huck to do so he goes through somewhat of an internal struggle, however he does continue

At this point in the book, Jim has been taken and sold to a nearby farm and Huck feels very sad and is confused as to why he feels that way. He was taught that slaves are not the same as white people and therefore its impossible for him to have a personal connection with Jim, a slave. This reflection ultimately leads to Huck’s

This book shows, “very realistic treatment of slave conditions and so forth” (Gibben). Jim a slave who is also a friend of Huck’s demonstrates the societies issue when it comes to slavery. In the beginning of the book, Huck does not see Jim as a person but as a property. However as time goes on, Huck realizes that he enjoys Jim’s company and that Jim is very caring and intelligent. Twain also portrays the harsh reality of slavery as “Huckleberry Finn contains the racial slur …often referred to now as the ‘n-word,’ more than 200 times” (Infobase).

Huck considers Jim to be Miss Watson’s property. He has been taught that slavery is something normal, and he doesn`t think about Jim in the terms of humanity. He is even surprised when he understands that Jim escaped, because according to him black-skinned people are made to accept everything that comes with slavery: “How do you come to be here, Jim, and how’d you get here?”

And, the white population believes that their racist crimes and thoughts are validated because they believe that slaves and men of color are below or inferior to whites, treating them like animal and less than humans. This inherent thought of superiority is sometimes expressed subtly and sometimes prominently through the actions, language, and overall behavior of the characters. Like when Huck says, “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way (Twain 51), Huck is put in a situation where he must apologize to a black man, and the reader finally realizes at this point the meaning of his difficulty. Because apologizing to a colored man is where one would have to lower their self-esteem and pride, the reader was able to understand how racist the white society was and how Huck was less racist than the others. Even the vernacular of the period was a clear indication of the racist thoughts that went through people’s heads. For example, the term “nigger” is currently a forbidden or wildly inappropriate word to reference a black person, but in the time of Huck and Tom, it is used quite freely and without any remorse. Even throughout the years, the term to reference a black men kept changing from Nigger, Negro, Black, African American, and so on. Hence, the reader can understand the primordial era of this change in reference to a particular

People are perceived differently depending on the culture that they were raised upon or the society that they were born into. People cannot control what others believe is the right ways of life, they can only control the way that they see life. Huck is one of those people. He sees life differently than the average American at the time. Huckleberry Finn was written in 1883 by the great American author, Mark Twain. This book had taken place within the Mississippi Valley about forty to fifty years prior to the time the book was written. Huck Finn was portrayed as an average American boy growing up in the midst of slavery. Life for him was a little difficult, especially since he didn’t really have a stable family. He never had a permanent home, he had to fake his own death to get freedom, and he even had to basically restart his life with Jim by his side. Huck views Jim differently depending on the people and the area that surrounds the two of them.

The relationship between Jim and Huck progressed more and more whenever they get caught in a difficult situation. For example, when Jim and Huck encountered an abandoned houseboat, they found something strange. Suddenly, Jim told him “it’s a dead man” that “ben shot in de back” and “he’s been dead two er three days. Come in Huck, but doan’ look at his face—it’s too gashly” (Pg. 50). This quote signify how Jim was protecting Huck from seeing the dead man because Jim knows it’s Huck’s father

Huck’s view changed after Jim told him “Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en

Huck grew up with barely any positive male influence in his life, only having Tom Sawyer and his drunk father to guide him. So the mature, protective nature of Jim was something that Huck had never faced before. “I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog… and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was (Twain Chapter 31).” Huck was able to feel like a child around Jim, without feeling the pressure of becoming civilized or not being himself. It’s obvious that Huck loved Jim, which further complicated the archaic views he’s absorbed due to the people around

Institutional racism was at an all time high during the time period of Huck Finn. If you were an African American, you were either a slave, or a free person with little to no chance at success in America. Racism at the institutional level is a major contributing factor to interpersonal racism. How the government treats a certain group makes you feel like that is okay but you do not really know why. The ideas of racism have been instilled in everyone’s mind forever and the government does that change anything by treating African Americans like property when Huck Finn takes place.