Huck Finn: Opposition to Racism
Megan Patton John Rohrkemper February 28, 2010 American Lit Exposing the Racist, Opposing Racism Since its original publication in 1884, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has proven to be one of the most controversial when it comes to the reoccurring issue of race in American society. Many argue that Mark Twain held the racist ideals that most people had in the 1830’s, while others know that Twain was a social satirist, mocking the ignorance of society. In order to be considered a racist novel Huck Finn would have to advocate racism.
The evidence thus far has lead me to believe that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn promotes a strong set of antiracist ethical values as the main character, Jim, a runaway slave is displayed as the best, most honorable character, while other white characters are depicted as ignorant and self centered, lacking ethical reasoning. The immorality of racism is periodically satirized throughout the novel. The unethical thinking of the time period of slavery is an issue that Twain recognizes, mocks, and clearly presents his opposition toward.
One of the main concerns consistently brought up by those who argue that Twain is racist is that simply based on the dialogue and use of the word “nigger,” Twain is being insensitive toward blacks. He must be a racist if he is using such a derogatory term. However, they fail to realize that he is telling a story how it would have happened and he avoids beating around the bush in order to lay out the reality of the time period when people engaged in such communication.
Order custom essay Huck Finn: Opposition to Racism with free plagiarism report
450+ experts on 30 subjects
Starting from 3 hours delivery
Justin Kaplan uses powerful words on the matter when he questions people who have “allowed him or herself even the barest minimum of intelligent response to its underlying spirit” (378) and still “accuse it of being racist because some of its characters use offensive racial epithets” (378). On the surface, this can easily be detected as racism but when taking a look at particular circumstances of ignorance, Huck’s internal battling experiences, and satiric element, the intent is clear. Jim, one of the main characters of the novel, is undoubtedly the most moral character in the novel.
Julius Lester argues in his piece “Morality in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” that Jim is a “childlike character” and is not taken seriously since he “runs away and does not immediately seek his freedom” (365). However, Jim has been brought up in a time where he himself feels some sort of inferiority complex to whites in society. Lester is partially correct in his philosophy that Jim is childlike, but wrong in the idea that this is a negative aspect of his character. His “childlike” quality characterizes his humility, nobility, and kindness.
He is much more one of the wiser characters in the novel as he recognizes the mistakes he has made and even expresses his guilt to Huck. He tells Huck a story about a time when he asked his four year old daughter to “’Shut de do’ “(154) and she just stood there smiling at him, deaf to the fact that her father was instructing her to shut the door. Since he did not realize she had scarlet fever and had grown deaf, he beat her for her disobedience. When he realized that she was deaf, he “bust out cryin’ en grab her up in [his] arms, and say “’Oh, de po’ little thing!
De Lord God almighty fogive po ol Jim’”(155) After beating his daughter, he realizes that what he did is wrong. He learns from his mistakes and asked for forgiveness from God who he believes is all powerful with the power to forgive man of his sins. In this scene Jim demonstrates wisdom. He takes what he knows, puts it to use, and repents. While he may not be the most educated character in the novel, he seems to have the most caring attitude based on the principles he has learned. According to Bennett Kravitz, Jim is “portrayed as noble, loyal, and the ultimate friend and family man. On the contrary to his ‘’childlike” trait that Lester believes Jim has, he is actually a father and acts much more like a caregiver. In a scene where Huck plays a trick on Jim, Jim grows seriously worried for Huck’s life. He even announces after an angry rant that Huck scared him half to death, that “my heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’t k’yer no mo’ what become er me en de raf’”(99). He goes on to express how he was so excited to see Huck alive that tears almost came.
This is a critical point in the novel, for it is the first time the friendship of Huck and Jim is revealed by one of the characters themselves. Of course, Jim being the gentle person he is, is the first one to call this relationship a friendship. Besides becoming worried over what he thought was the loss of his friend Huck, Jim shows his care giving qualities towards the end of the novel when he stays behind to help nurse Tom back to health. Jim bases his actions on what he thinks Tom Sawyer would do in the situation and insists n getting a doctor. His persistence is so strong that he says, “’I doan budge a step out’n dis place,’ dout a doctor: not if it’s forty year! ’(249). ” Upon the doctor’s arrival, Jim comes out of hiding and aids the doctor, knowing that he will be recaptured. Not only is he being a concerned care giving man, but Jim is risking his freedom for a person he barely knows. He has that father like instinct that Julius Lester seems to have missed. It is the other characters in the novel who demonstrate weak ethical values.
Many of the characters who have racist credentials are portrayed as lowly, immoral, and uneducated. They rarely show remorse and are entirely self-centered. On the other hand, Jim is an easygoing, loving person who as uneducated as he is, consistently cares for others, is loyal to his friendships, and feels guilt in his mistakes. After being visually described as having “been drunk over in town and [laying] in the gutter all night,” (52) Pap goes on to find fault in the government for not only taking away his son, but for allowing a “nigger” from Ohio to become a professor.
Ironically, Pap thinks he is superior to a highly educated man who “could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything” (52) and is angry with the government for allowing a “nigger” to teach. He is so wrapped up in the skin color that he does not realize his own faults and idiocy. Additionally, Pap is quite the opposite of Jim who loves his family, articulates his longing to be with them as well as his guilt for beating his daughter. Pap came back into Huck’s life demanding the money he received in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, not because he loved Huck and wanted to be more involved in his life.
He does not have a care in the world for Huck, his only son. When finally Pap kidnaps Huck and has the chance to develop that father, son relationship, he locks him in a cabin while he goes out and gets wasted, and when he returns, Pap beats the boy. In Huck’s words Pap “got too handy with his hick’ry and I couldn’t stand it. Welts all over” (50). Incongruously to Jim’s remorse, Pap is not phased by his wrongdoing. Twain certainly did this on purpose. The racism held by Huck’s father, as well as many other Americans preceding the Civil War when blacks and other minorities were seen as inferiors, is displayed throughout the novel.
Through the constant use of the derogatory term “nigger” and the maltreatment of Jim as well as other blacks and slaves, Twain is able to illustrate society’s ignorance. This way, as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is taught throughout the country, young people, or any person for that matter can see the veracity and severity of racist attitudes. Pap is not the only character in the novel who displays a loose set of moral values. The escapade with the Duke and the Dauphin is another encounter in the novel where whites are displayed as weak, self centered people who are blindly racist.
Twain uses their constant conniving deeds to show a diversity of white characters in this society as horrible people. In Justin Kaplan’s “Born To Trouble: 100 Years of Huckleberry Finn”, he describes Jim and Huck being on the run because of a “nightmare society driven by bigotry, violence, exploitation, greed, and ignorance (379)” These words are perfect in describing the Duke and the Dauphin as they move from town to town tricking people out of their money.
In one particular scenario, it is not even possible to feel sorry for the townspeople who are getting tricked out of their money because then they go and act like the “play” was great so that everyone else in the town gets tricked out of their money as well. Along with Pap, the Duke, and the Dauphin are the “religious” characters who seem to have it all together but definitely do not. By displaying even the “best of the best” characters with racist attitudes, Twain shows how it was society as a whole who held racist ideals, not just the lowlife criminal types.
An example of a character that seems to have herself together is Ms. Watson. She is supposed to be a smart, religious, good-intending family woman. Even the good woman who took Huck into her home to raise him “sivilized” has flaws. While in the end she is the one to grant Jim his freedom, preceding this she put her selfish desires for money ahead of Jim and though he was her slave, Jim was someone she had known for quite a while. To Jim’s knowledge, he was someone she cared about on some level even if she did not see him as an equal. Jim overheard Ms.
Watson talking about selling Jim “down the river,” which is the very reason he ran away. Another supposedly wholesome, good intending character is Aunt Sally. When Huck first meets Aunt Sally he describes an accident on the boat he was traveling on. Aunt Sally exclaims “Good Gracious! Anybody hurt? ” to which Huck replies No’m Killed a nigger” (206). Sadly, this quote is often seen as racist but in actuality it contains a very satirical element and according to Kaplan is “a frequently, brutal, painful realism” (379). The novel is simply showing the corruption of the adult world.
Peaches Henry argues that “In order to believe in Twain’s satirical intention, one has to believe in Huck’s good faith toward Jim” (390). It is easy to identify Huck’s good faith toward Jim throughout the novel. Aside from the idiocy of a majority of characters, Huck’s internal battles with himself throughout the novel demonstrate Mark Twain’s antiracist beliefs. Though Huck, in his conscience believes blacks to be worthless, his somewhat naive personality and “conscience” can be blamed. He has been spoon-fed everything he knows about Africans by a society which has enslaved them and had a superior attitude towards them.
It is a tough situation to examine, as by today's standards slavery is seen by the overwhelming majority of American citizens as morally wrong, but in Huck's time and place the majority saw it as the natural order of things. However, despite his upbringings and learned racism, Huck periodically has instances where he believes Jim “seems white” or, in other words, seems to be like any other human with feelings, emotions, and close family relations. Earlier, in a moment where Jim shows his care giving qualities, Huck shows one of his first signs of affection toward “a nigger. ” He shows his first signs of remorse as he apologizes to Jim.
Though he does mention “it was fifteen minutes before I would work myself up to go and humble myself to nigger” (100)” Huck does apologize, feels remorse, and admits to the audience that what he did “made [him] feel mean” (99). The second time Huck has a moment of realization about Jim that surprises him is when Jim talks about his family. When Jim goes on to describe them, and the regret he had for beating his daughter for something she didn’t deserve, Huck sees something in Jim that he had probably had been taught that blacks did not posses. He was probably taught that they did not have feelings.
He realizes in this moment that Jim must have feelings and therefore makes that statement that Jim is “white inside. ” Additionally, in the moment earlier discussed in Tom’s injured state where Jim uses logic to decide on calling a doctor, Huck states, “I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did say – so it was alright, now. ” The most climactic moment in the novel is the ultimate battle Huck faces when he is forced to choose between the societal values he has been taught and raised to believe is right or to help Jim which he feels in his heart is the right thing to do.
Huck has been raised to believe that blacks were uneducated, inferior, and most certainly not people to become friends with. For all Huck knew, blacks were placed on the earth to work and lacked the ability to love and care. Huck definitely believed that aiding a black man in an escape would send him to hell. This moment directly indicates how foolish Twain believed the people of the time period to be. Huck states, “I was trembling, because I’d got to decide forever betwixt two things, and I knowed it.
I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: ‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’ –and tore it up. ” By this point in the novel, through their adventures and development of friendship, Huck is willing to risk eternity in hell to save his friend. Surely, even if he may not admit that he and Jim were friends, someone would not risk their lives for a stranger, or even an acquaintance. Not only does Huck begin to see Jim as an equal in his heart, though it may not be in his “conscience”, he is also constantly seeing how awful society is.
In order to detect racism there must be a middle step of realization that ill treatment of people based on their skin color is wrong. In order to see that this is wrong, it is important to notice the problems within society to begin with. In his experience with the Duke and Dauphin, Huck witnesses their tar and feathering, another cruel punishment by society, and states that, “It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race” (160). The fact that Huck even acknowledges a problem in the human race would not have been part of the story if Twain had agreed with society’s view on slavery.
It demonstrates his antiracist approach. One of the purposes of the novel is for the reader to develop sympathy towards Jim. Because the people around him lack morals while he consistently shows a moral and accepting view towards life, his character develops superiorly to the rest of society despite his lack of education. His lack of education exists because of Twain’s realist approach to the novel. People like Julius Lester and Peaches Henry who believe the novel to be racist, are only looking at the surface and the degrading dialogue.
The novel was not made to be politically correct. “Twain takes issue with the major racial theories of his day, and those critics who are convinced only of the racist potential of the text and/or Mark Twain would do well to examine the "unsaid" of the text. ”(Kravitz) If it was rewritten to appease the masses and use more accepted terms for today’s day and age, reality would be misrepresented, race would cease to be an issue, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn would not exist as one the greatest pieces of American Literature.
Cite this Page
Huck Finn: Opposition to Racism. (2017, Feb 25). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/huck-finn-opposition-to-racism/
Run a free check or have your essay done for you
