More Than Just the “N word”
The dreaded “N word” is sure to cause much controversy when used in award winning novels. Two such novels are The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Although the strong use of discriminatory language in both of these novels might be the similarity most focused on by media, there are many more literary aspects that make these all American stories very much alike. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a continuation of the story of Tom Sawyer, Huck’s close friend. At the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck goes from being a very poor boy to finding gold in a cave with Tom and is adopted by a widowed lady. In Huck’s continuation of the story, his alcoholic father
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On an island on the Mississippi river, Huck meets a runaway slave named Jim who he teams up with. Throughout these ordeals along with many others, Huck gains a strong conscience and develops a heightened sense of the inequality of his time. Of Mice and Men follows two young men, George and Lennie, who are looking for work after running from the troubles of their last town. They settle down on a ranch in hopes of earning enough money to buy some land were they can have their own farm, and no one can forget that Lennie will get to tend those rabbits. On the ranch, they make many new friends, including a few people whom the rest of the workers tend to ignore because they are minorities. Readers meet these characters (Crooks and Curley’s Wife) for who they are rather than what society makes them out to be. Towards the end of the novel, Lennie mistakenly kills Curley’s Wife and George makes the decision to kill him rather than letting the rest of the workers kill Lennie. As well as having similar characteristic regarding “The American Dream”, in Of Mice and Men as well as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, messages of discrimination are shown through similar uses of settings, conflicts and
The book starts off telling us that you may know Huck from another book called the adventures of Tom Sawyer. Which was also written by Mark Twain. In the first chapter, we figured out the Tom and Huck found a stash of gold that some robbers stole and hid in a cave. They both got $6,000 a piece. After they both got their shares of the money they had Judge Thatcher put it into a trust, in the bank. Once Huck was known for finding the treasure Widow Douglass adopted Huck. Widow Douglass also tried to civilize Huck, but Huck didn't want to be with Douglass so he ran away. Huck took all of his belongings with him, but nothing that Douglass gave him. After Huck ran away he went to join up with Tom Sawyer and his new gang of robbers. The Widow tried to teach Huck about reading and writing before he ran away. But thats the reason why he left because he wasn't interested in any of that stuff. Huck left the Widow’s house when he heard something outside the house, it was Tom waiting for him in the yard. So Huck got up and left.
Huckleberry Finn, “Huck”, over the course of the novel, was faced with many obstacles that went into creating his moral compass. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins with Huck, a 12 year old boy heavily swayed by society and by Tom Sawyer, a fellow orphan. His opinions and depiction of right and wrong were so swindled to fit into society’s mold. Throughout the story Huck Finn’s moral compass undergoes a complete transformation in search of a new purpose in life. Huck was raised with very little guidance from an alcoholic father, of no mentorship. He was forced to live with Widow Douglas and with Miss Watson’s hypocritical values. Upon learning of God and Heaven from Widow Douglas, he remarks that he is unable to see the benefits of going
Of Mice and Men is novel that was written by John Steinbeck that describes the journey of George, and his mentally disabled friend, Lennie, as they travel and work together on a ranch in California. The story of Of Mice and Men accounts for the experience of George and Lennie as they encounter different people on the ranch who live in solitude, such as Crooks the negro stable buck, and the wife of the boss’s son, Curley. Crooks the stable buck is always alone because he is black, and during the time period of which the novel takes place, people with colored skin were discriminated and excluded from white social activities. Curley’s wife is alone most of the time because most of the men on ranch stay away
Set in pre-civil war America, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn takes place along the Mississippi river. As Huckleberry travels along it he learns lessons about life, society and most importantly; himself. Surrounded by a world of prejudice and racism, Huck is forced to learn to make decisions on his own. He is able to learn from the imperfections in the rest of the world as he views them. While on the river, Huck and Jim are at peace. The river symbolizes freedom for both Jim and Huck. The river is Jim’s path to freedom from slavery, and it is Huck’s freedom from society. When Jim and Huck journey onto the banks of the river they see the inhumanity to man that goes on in the world. This juxtaposition of the river and the land help emphasize the peacefulness of the river in comparison to the crazy society on land. Huck learns to think for himself, and tries not to conform to the ways of the people on the land. Although the world that he lives in teaches him to be a racist, his journey down the river teaches him to use his own mind, and find out what he really believes in.
In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck explores human relationships through characters who are barely fleshed out beyond the boundary of a stereotype. Many of the minor characters even have names which reflect their status as a symbol of their position rather than thinking, feeling people. Crooks, the African American stable buck, represents the "crooked" thinking of the majority toward other races during the time period while Curley's wife represents only that- the wife of a man. Her character serves to show the place of women in a man's society. Likewise, the two main characters, George and Lennie, each serve as a symbol of psychological and physical traits which complement each other to show how important human relationships are, regardless of the traits a person may possess. All human beings develop relationships with others because those relationships fill particular needs. Those needs may be physical, economic, psychological, or social.
In the Steinbeck novel ‘Of Mice and Men’, he introduces us to the character of Curley’s wife. She could be interpreted as a mis-fitting character in the novel, as no one relaters to her. This essay will go on to examine the character of Curley’s wife and how characters perceive her and how this influences the readers interpretation of her.
Huckleberry Finn disappears from home due to an improper relationship with his father. Even before that time, he strived for excitement when exploring with his admirable friend Tom Sawyer. One of too many times when Pap had gotten drunk, Huck had enough and decided to escape from his father. While traveling along the Mississippi River, Huck was scared but also wanted to explore. He soon found Jim, a runaway slave whom he was acquainted with and together they started their interesting odyssey. After a while, Huck and Jim grew closer and their raft soon became their new home. They both enjoyed the fellowship shared amongst them and the peace of the environment. Like Huckleberry Finn, Lily Owens also flees from her abusive father to better understand her past and to find herself a better reason to live. Lily and Rosaleen, her stand-in mother embark on a journey where the resolution is not known. However, they soon find a few colored women to accept them into their home and mend their broken lives from the cruel society’s impacts on
Huckleberry Finn, the son of a known drunk in town, is already able to look back at some exciting adventures and a chaotic and disobedient lifestyle. As he was taken under the wings of the widow Douglas. He lived in her nice house with the intentions of making him an acceptable figure of the american society. After three months Huckeberry Finn cannot take, living a high social life, full of annoying expectations, that he eventually leaves the town St. Petersburg. On his way to freedom and away of authority he gets to know Jim. A colored slave who also escaped from his owner because he was about to be sold to a new plantation owner. They become friends and start to head down the Mississippi river on a self-made raft. On which they experience a bunch crazy adventures, sometimes even dramatic ones. While on their trip Huck basically only experiences fraud, theft and lies as he runs into his father and a clever couple of swindlers. He soon notices that justice, faith and humanity is only presented as a camouflage. At the end of their travels Huckleberry Finn and Jim meet Tom Sawyer and eventually return back to St. Petersb...
Mark Twain, an author who grew up in the racially-biased southern society of the United States, wrote based upon what he saw and heard around him. As a result of this fact, the word “nigger” is used often to reflect the dialogue that was used at that time. Although this word is used, it should not be enough for people to accuse the book of being racist. “Huckleberry Finn” is not a racist novel, because of differences in the history, laws, and connotation that are associated with
Curley’s Wife in ‘Of Mice and Men’ is used cleverly by Steinbeck to create sympathy among the reader, but also to represent the position of women in 1930s America. Through an intelligently designed pattern of events in the book, we feel varying amounts of sympathy for Curley’s Wife and thus unconsciously acquire information regarding the issues women had to face in the 1930s. In this essay I will evaluate the extent to which Steinbeck presents Curley’s Wife as a sympathetic character and its relation to 1930s America. We are first introduced to Curley’s Wife through a description of her from Candy, and straight away, that in itself demonstrates her lack of individuality because she can’t speak for herself or even introduce herself just like the majority of women in the 1930s. Also, the fact that Curley’s Wife does not have her own name and is simply a possession of Curley exemplifies the concept that women in the 1930s were treated as belongings of men and were stripped of their individuality, highlighting the social hierarchy in those times.
To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men are different in setting yet share themes and details that are very common to each other. Both set in the 1930’s, the novels explore discrimination and prejudice from the working class. The two books have both white and coloured characters displaying the differences of the culture in America. Discrimination is rife in the worlds of these two novellas along with ideas of hierarchy and peer pressure. All these themes challenge the friendships and relationships in these worlds.
Widow Douglas adopted him so that she could civilize him and raise him to be a gentleman. Huck did not like going to school, attending church or dressing up. Tom Sawyer, Ben Rogers, and Joe Harper were his friends at the local school. Huck and Tom found a treasure hidden by bank robbers and were allowed to keep six thousand dollars each, for themselves, as a reward. Huck’s father heard about his son’s treasure and returned to St. Petersburg.
Throughout Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck displays how isolation through sexism and racism causes one to crave attention, and he helps the reader to understand the problems in society about racism and sexism through portraying Curley’s Wife and Crooks both craving attention in their own ways and experiencing various setbacks. Curley’s Wife, who persistently talked with every man on the ranch besides her husband, displays how sexism is portrayed on the ranch. Steinbeck proves this by showing a differing view towards women in the time period that the book was written, because, as Carleson states, “Why’n’t you tell her to stay the hell home where she belongs?” (Steinbeck, 62).
Discrimination was one of the issues that caused conflict in the novel “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck. One example of discrimination in the novel comes in the form of racial discrimination against Crooks, as he is an African American. Another example of discrimination is gender discrimination against Curley’s wife. Finally, there is discrimination against mentally disabled people, which is evident in Lennie’s character. The ranch hands' actions and conversations demonstrated the racial discrimination against Crooks for his skin colour, gender discrimination against Curley’s wife for her gender, and prejudice against Lennie, who was a mentally disabled individual.
Twain focuses a lot in this novel about the relationship between Huck, the white boy and Jim the black slave. Huck and Jim are both looking for freedom. Their friendship begins when they had some common events throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, they have such a complicated relationship between each other. They both have suffered a lot, but at the end of the novel their friendship changes to be as a relationship between a father and a son.