Huck Finn: The Twisting Tides Of Portrayal - Racism Essay

This is exactly the kind of behavior that twain didn’t like. However, the main theme in this book is breaking free. He urges his readers to do the right thing, not necessarily what everyone else is doing. He illustrates this ideal with Huck. Most everyone else thought of Jim, along with blacks in general, as something less than human. Huck knew this was wrong, and his actions followed this when he rescued Jim. Main characters Huckleberry Finn Huck is the narrator of the story and for the most part is honest to us, the readers. He dreads the rules and conformities of society such as religion, school, and everything else that will eventually make him civilized. A big debate surrounds Huck on whether he changes or not throughout the story. Huck, in the beginning, seems very set in the south’s anti-black ways, however, Huck states that he will go to hell to keep Jim out of slavery. At this point it seems like he does change, but at the end of the book, Huck plays yet another joke on Jim and seems as though any change was temporary. Huck has little sense of humor, which is ironical, considering the book is satirical. Twain has also been criticized about Huck’s character, in that it seems as though Huck knows too much for his age. In one of the movies Huck was about seventeen, in another he was about eight. I figure from the book that Huck is

“All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn,” this is what fellow writer had to say about this classic novel. Still, this novel has been the object of controversy since it was published more than 150 years ago. Some people argue that Huckleberry Finn is a racist work, and that the novel has no place in a highschool classroom. This feeling is generated because a main character in the story, Jim, and other slaves are referred to many times as “niggers.” When Mark Twain wrote this book, he was striving to show the general public that society was wrong in the past, that the way white people thought black people were less than human was a wrong viewpoint. The

Mark Twain went against endless amounts of criticism about his racist’s comments in his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The character of Jim is demeaning to African-Americans as he is portrayed as a foolish, uneducated, black slave. The “n” word is also used in the book describing him and many other African-American characters in the story. However, some see this book as anti-racist and believe that the use of racist’s comments is not racist at all. Those who think that are mistaken because Huck Finn in clearly a racist novel.

Mark Twain has always been one of the most controversial authors of all time. Though in recent years, there has been increasing controversy over the ideas expressed in his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In some extreme cases the novel has even been banned by public school systems and censored by public libraries. The basis for this censorship is the argument that Mark Twain's book is racist, but in reality Twain was against racism and used this book to make people aware of what was going on in the south. He did this by using the regional dialect of the south, showing the attitude of the other characters in the novel toward black people, and showing his depiction of black characters. If one were to "read between the lines"

Ever since its publication over a hundred years ago, controversy has swarmed around one of Mark Twain’s most popular novels, Huck Finn. Even then, many educators supported its dismissal from school libraries. For post Civil-War Americans, the argument stemmed from Twain’s use of spelling errors, poor grammar, and curse words. In the politically correct 1990’s however, the point of argument has now shifted to one of the major themes of the book: Racism. John Wallace once said of the book, “It’s the most grotesque version of racist trash” ever written. Were Twain’s archetypal characters and use of vernacular language an assertion of his own racist views, or a critique of the injustice of

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.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain is often criticized as a racist text; however, it may have helped to dismantle racial prejudices. The classic satire piece was written in the late 1800s and follows a young boy named Huckleberry Finn on his journey down the Mississippi river. Huck soon joins with Jim, a runaway slave, as they both flee from their unfortunate situations. When the book was published, it was highly controversial, due to the questionable morals of Huck Finn, and the candid portrayal of slavery. Today, Twain is often denounced for what many see as an overuse of the “n” word, and a comically negative portrayal of African Americans. Many argue that Jim is depicted as a caricature, similar to the exaggerated and offensive

Twain was just writing what he knew of that time, and had no intention of making his book seem racist to the African American people of that time. In the way Twain choose to have Jim and also at times Huck speak were in ways that might have not been distinctly racist; however, in their dialect they appeared as lesser human beings because of the stigma brought upon them through the way Twain developed their conversational skills. For example Jim said “Dese las’ skifts wuz full o’ladies en genlmen agoin’ over for to see de place” (Twain 33) which are examples of th-stopping, final consonant cluster reduction, eye dialect, g-dropping, and incorrect grammatical structure. There is a possibility that some people could have truly been trying to show the good of the African American culture. The work from “Representing Education and Labor” was trying to prove that African Americans could have the ability of reaching higher education; however, with the minute amount of African Americans that are able to succeed it once again brings back the ever so degrading stigma that African Americans have no chance of higher levels of life.

A major theme in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is slavery and our evolvement towards the institution. “In fact, Twain’s novel is often taught as the text that epitomizes this tradition, with Huck held up as its exemplar: a boy courageous enough to stand against the moral conventions of his society. . .” (Bollinger, 32 – Say It Jim) In the beginning of Huckleberry Finn’s relationship with Jim, he has little respect for him and as their journey progresses he

Twain is clearly taking a literally jab at racism and furthermore exposing the immoral concepts of racism. Huck Finn is an important part of American literature as it exposes racism which is still a considerable problem in society

     There is a major argument among literary critics whether the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, is or is not a racist novel. The question focus on the depiction of Jim, the black slave, and the way he is treat by Huck and other characters. The use of the word “nigger” is also a point raised by some critic, who feel that Twain uses the word too often 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.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the most exciting novel in the world. Mark Twain certainly has a style of his own that shows a reality in the novel about the society back in eighteenth-century America. Mark Twain definitely characterizes the main character, the smart and kind Huckleberry Finn by the direct open manner of writing. Huck is so exact it reflects even the racism and black labels typical of the era. And this has led to many difficult battles by several readers since the release of the book. Though inspiring some. Many authors livid by Twain’s constant use of the shameful word ‘nigger’. The disagreement behind the novel has been and will always remain the root of any readers who still are truly racist. Twain sure does use the word ‘nigger’ often, both as a reference to the slave Jim and any other slaves that Huck encounters with and as the height of insult and weakness. However, the reader must also not fail to recognize that this type of racism, this hateful behavior towards African-Americans is all natural of the pre-Civil War tradition. Racism is only said in the novel as an object of natural course and views of the setting then. Huckleberry Finn still stands as an influential picture of experience through the fresh eyes of an innocent boy. Huck only says and treats the African-American people accordingly with the society that he was raised in. To say anything different would truly be out of place.

The notorious Mark Twain once said “Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.” Having lived at a time where racism and slavery were debatably at their peak, Twain undeniably experienced the cruelty of which humanity is capable. Twain's mindset during the aforementioned quotation was evident in his masterwork Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Especially in recent years, his work is often criticized and even censored for its supposedly “racist” ideologies. Mainly having to do with the book insisting on referring to the deuteragonist, Jim, and other slaves as “niggers”. Be that as it may, the deeper you dive into the publication; you would come to find that Twain instead satirizes the concepts of racism and slavery and even comes across as having an anti-slavery perspective. Ironically, one of the best examples of Twain's masterful satire is demonstrated in one of the novel's most off putting moments. The first time the reader is introduced to Jim, they are given a very unfavorable description of the character. Jim is described as illiterate, almost childlike and unintelligent. However, the reader must understand that this description of Jim is supplied from Huck's point of view. Although Huck himself is presented to the reader as not being inherently racist, he was raised by incredibly racist individuals who implanted their beliefs and hate into Huck. As distasteful as this description is, it is

Mark Twain is seen by some as being a racist because of the style of his writing in his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In the seventeenth century, white people owned slaves and treated them as property. Twain wanted to show people in today’s society how black people were treated during the time of slavery. Some critics accuse Mark Twain of being a racist, however, in the novel Huck and Jim have a friendship which proves otherwise. Twain did not intend the book to be racist. Some parents, teachers, critics, and many others may find this book inappropriate and feel it should not be permitted to be taught in classrooms. However, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, should be taught in schools in order to educate students about the past use of the “n-word”, treatment of blacks as property, and man’s prejudice against man during the seventeenth century when blacks were slaves.

“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” has been considered controversial for it being a supposedly racist novel. The novel takes place in Antebellum America, where slavery was extremely prevalent. African Americans were not treated as normal human beings and were denied their God-given rights. It was not Mark Twain’s intent to write a racist novel; he fully demonstrated how life was really like by being historically accurate and wrote in the vernacular so that readers get the raw image of life on the Mississippi River. The novel is not racist: it is a sincere statement towards society regarding the brutality of slavery and of each individual’s natural rights to freedom. Through events such as Pap’s views on African Americans, the countless amount of uses of the “n” word, and with Huck’s relationship with Jim is where we can see the message Twain was conveying in the novel.