In his controversial novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain the moral and social values of the South and the characters within the novel in order to display the evil nature of racism within American society. He especially exemplifies this through Jim, a former slave who joins Huck on his adventures down the Mississippi. Twain is able to display present Jim in a good light in order to display the inhuman and immoral nature of racism causing the reader to reflect upon their own actions and how they can improve and strive for a society that is just and beneficial for all.
To fully comprehend Twain’s purpose, we must reflect upon the society in which the novel was written in. The novel was set a Southern society that still viewed African Americans as inferior to whites and didn’t believe in social or moral equality for all. When the reader is first introduced to Jim, Huck still views Jim as the property of Miss Watson. “We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson’s big n-” (Twain 6). Through this quote, the we are introduced to the racist mindset of Huck and the South in general. Although Huck doesn’t view himself as racist, he is the product of the environment that continued …show more content…
At the beginning of the novel, Huck finds out that Jim is to be sold to a slave owner in New Orleans for $800. “I heard old missus tell the widow that she was going to sell me down to New Orleans” (Twain 74). Even though Miss Watson presents herself as a very religious woman who is always trying to teach Huck to do the right thing and follows her religious values very seriously, she not only dehumanizes Jim by treating him like an animal and selling him but she is also ripping him away from his family. Her racist feeling caused Miss Watson’s highly religious moral to be overcome and caused her to make immoral decisions. This shows the reader how racism can overtake their own judgment and cause them to
To fully comprehend Twain’s purpose, we must reflect upon the society in which the novel was written in. The novel was set a Southern society that still viewed African Americans as inferior to whites and didn’t believe in social or moral equality for all. When the reader is first introduced to Jim, Huck still views Jim as the property of Miss Watson. “We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson’s big n-” (Twain 6). Through this quote, the we are introduced to the racist mindset of Huck and the South in general. Although Huck doesn’t view himself as racist, he is the product of the environment that continued …show more content…
At the beginning of the novel, Huck finds out that Jim is to be sold to a slave owner in New Orleans for $800. “I heard old missus tell the widow that she was going to sell me down to New Orleans” (Twain 74). Even though Miss Watson presents herself as a very religious woman who is always trying to teach Huck to do the right thing and follows her religious values very seriously, she not only dehumanizes Jim by treating him like an animal and selling him but she is also ripping him away from his family. Her racist feeling caused Miss Watson’s highly religious moral to be overcome and caused her to make immoral decisions. This shows the reader how racism can overtake their own judgment and cause them to