Racism In Huck Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Racism & Slavery

How would you feel if a white boy couldn’t apologize to a grown black man because it goes against his faith? If I was in the black man’s position I would feel disrespected but I wouldn’t blame the white boy because he was brought up like that and it’s in his mentality to look at African Americans as property and with disgust. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain incorporates racism and slavery to show how and why it is wrong. He uses Huck, one of his man characters, to demonstrate how a white boy breaks forth from society’s racist ideas and the people around him to have a strong friendship with a slave name Jim, who becomes a fugitive. He uses Jim to demonstrate humanity and how it has nothing to do with the color of your skin. He also shows the struggle African Americans had to go through during that period of time in order to be free. Through friendship Huck learns that Jim is a regular human being just like everyone else.

Slavery refers to a condition in which individuals are owned by others, who control where they live and at what they work. Twain wrote this novel twenty years after the Emancipation Proclamation but that didn’t stop white people from getting their “property”. Back then slavery was normal, it wasn’t illegal nor was it a crime. The sad part about it was how the white people thought the slaves were unintelligent, useless, possessions, etc. For example, on page 81, Huck realizes something interesting about Jim. “Well, he was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger” (81). “I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to argue. So I quit”. As Huck spends more time around Jim, Huck realizes that h...

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...eings act so self-centered, arrogant, and pride that we don’t care about anybody but our selves. When we say the pledge allegiance we don’t mean want were saying…I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. When you say the pledge you should mean every word were saying because it only a pledge but a vow to God. When we talk about justice and liberty we don’t just mean to Americans but the whole world. In 1863 Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free”. In my perspective this was a command from God through Abraham. The sad thing about it is we still don’t follow it. Slavery and racism needs to stop before it gets out of hand.