Huck Finn Racism

Submitted By madddleigh
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Maddie
Huckleberry Finn Essay
3/3/14
In the 1840’s society was taught that blacks were not the same as whites, not only by the color of their skin on the outside, but that they were different on the inside to. The way blacks were treated was unjust and dehumanizing. Throughout the novel Twain illustrates how poorly blacks were treated, but also shows that not every single person felt the same way towards blacks. Hucks relationship with Jim is a perfect example of how white people thought they were better than blacks, but as the novel goes on Huck seems to realize that blacks are just like whites. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, society believes that they are not racist because it was so natural at the time to have slaves, this novel demonstrates how society can be unjust, cruel, and inhumane, but also how not everyone feels the same towards blacks. For blacks in the 1840’s they barely had any rights and if they did have a certain right white people would become angry and try to get that right taken away. At this point in time free black men did have a few rights and one of them was voting. White people did not like this at all, especially Hucks drunk father, Pap. He was not so popular in the town because of his bad habits when he was drunk. “It was ‘lection day” (37) and Pap “was just about to go and vote” (37) if he “warn’t too drunk”. Pap had claimed that he “drawed out” (37) because he found out “there was a state in the country where they’d let that nigger vote” (37). Pap was furious that the government would let a black person vote because no one saw them as equal, so Pap claimed that he will “never vote ag’in” (37). Even though Pap was too drunk to vote he still would not have voted because they were letting blacks have the same right as them, which was completely against society at the time. This is another way that we can prove that society has taught white people to believe that they are better and more entitled then blacks. Majority of the white population in America at this time opposed blacks having any rights because they could not see them as equal, which just proves how unjust society was in the 1840’s. All blacks were treated as if they were animals that did not have any feelings. Their punishments for anything they did would have been extremely painful. You can see how white people think that blacks are animals when they chained Jim up and only have him bread and water, because he was not a human just an animal. Instead of leaving Jim there chained up he got him “out of the chains in no time” (303), which is another way Huck defies society. Huck truly cares about Jim, which was unheard of at the time because white people never saw a point in caring about blacks. The blacks enslaved in America for the most part were uneducated and had no idea about any of the outside countries or culture because their owners preferred that they were stupid. In chapter 19, Huck and Jim got into an argument about how much Jim can understand. Huck expected Jim to understand everything without any explanation, which was unreasonable of him because Jim has never had education. Huck was trying to explain to Jim that he wouldn’t understand some things because it’s in a different language and people speak differently, but Jim could barely even understand the concept that people spoke different languages. Jim repeatedly tells Huck that “dey aint no sense in it” (90) and how it is “ridicklous” (90). Jim had questioned Huck about how cats and cows don’t talk “like a man” (90), but the point of it was that if we were all the same than why did people own other human beings? How was that even
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