Sociable Jimmy By Mark Twain Summary

The main topic of this reading is the character Huck Finn from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. However, the author of the article focuses on how African-Americans in Mark Twain’s life may have played a role in shaping the Huck Finn’s unique character and linguistic traits.

The author argues that Huck Finn’s speech patterns as well as his personality is based on an earlier character that Mark Twain wrote about called “Sociable Jimmy,” a character based on a young African-American boy that was sent to watch him. The author argues that Twain unconsciously borrowed a number of influences from African-Americans, such as vocabulary and grammatical structures, and that by placing those qualities into the character of Huck Finn, a white

Additionally, the author also uses Twain’s responses in interviews, letters that Mark Twain sent between 1872-1876 to various individuals that detail his experiences and observations of African-American individuals, as well as a letter from John Ayres that talks about Black John, an African-American individual who was at the side of Tom Blankenship, Twain’s inspiration for Huck Finn. He also uses academic journals published in the 1870’s and 1880’s in order to analyze Huck Finn’s

Additionally, this article also reveals what is it stake for the American literature community if Huck Finn’s character and voice is believed to have been based on African-Americans and their vernacular. Huck Finn’s character helped to created the colloquial style in American literature and the assertion that Huck Finn is black immediately calls into question how American the literary phenomenon of “American colloquial style” is, and reveals that Twain’s decision to have Huck Finn’s African-American roots disguised underneath the status of a white child erases the African-American influences on his work. In essence, Twain is essentially reappropriating African-American influences and casting Huck Finn and those linguistic stylizations of African-American culture as belonging to White