Is Huckleberry Finn a racist text?
Huckleberry Finn is a book written in the 1840s about a young white boy and a black man who travel down the Mississippi trying to get the black man to freedom. Ever since this book has came out there has been a huge controversy over it and how this story is portrayed. The main problem parents had over this book was the use of the “N” word and how it would make black children feel in the classroom while reading this book. But overall it sends a good message if you look past all the racist undertones. No, the relationship between Huck and Jim proves that this book is not racist despite the racist language used by the author. The most important quality of the relationship between Huck and Jim is there loyalty …show more content…
At first they are friends who trust and are loyal to each other but eventually this turns into a need for Huck. On page 3 of Toni Morrison’s essay she says “Then the leading question the novel poses for me is, What does Huck need to live without terror, melancholy, and suicidal thoughts? The answer, of course, is Jim.” Huck needs Jim in his life because he makes him happy and forget about all the bad things in his life.” Huck doesn 't really know what he wants to do in the beginning of the book, he just wants to go to a new place and do new things. Jim is that new thing and Huck needs him in order to escape his previous life of his drunk father and being annoyed by Miss Watson. Morrison continues on page 3 by saying “Yet he is depressed by himself and sees nature more often as fearful. But when he and Jim become the only “we,” the anxiety is outside, not within.” Now that Huck has Jim, his anxiety about everything else going on in his life is gone, and now all he has to focus on is …show more content…
One major point being the use of the “N” word, seeing as it is used 219 times. On page 224 of Huck Finn “In the morning we was up at break of day, and down to the nigger cabins to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that fed Jim—if it was Jim that was being fed. The niggers was just getting through breakfast and starting for the fields; and Jim’s nigger was piling up a tin pan with bread and meat and things;“ Just in this small paragraph the “N” word is used four times. Mark Twain 's use of this makes the book racist, not Huck helping Jim to freedom. Another reason Mark Twain’s use of language makes this book racist is because when the slaves talk in the book, he makes them look uneducated. An example of this would be on page 261 Jim says "Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz him dat 'uz bein ' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f 'r to save dis one? ' Is dat like Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You bet he wouldn 't! Well, den, is Jim gywne to say it? No, sah—I doan ' budge a step out 'n dis place 'dout a Doctor, not if it 's forty year!" Twain makes the text for slaves very uneducated and has them talk with a big slang, which shows they are inferior to white people, which makes the text racist. The overall point of this paragraph is to show
Huckleberry Finn is a book written in the 1840s about a young white boy and a black man who travel down the Mississippi trying to get the black man to freedom. Ever since this book has came out there has been a huge controversy over it and how this story is portrayed. The main problem parents had over this book was the use of the “N” word and how it would make black children feel in the classroom while reading this book. But overall it sends a good message if you look past all the racist undertones. No, the relationship between Huck and Jim proves that this book is not racist despite the racist language used by the author. The most important quality of the relationship between Huck and Jim is there loyalty …show more content…
At first they are friends who trust and are loyal to each other but eventually this turns into a need for Huck. On page 3 of Toni Morrison’s essay she says “Then the leading question the novel poses for me is, What does Huck need to live without terror, melancholy, and suicidal thoughts? The answer, of course, is Jim.” Huck needs Jim in his life because he makes him happy and forget about all the bad things in his life.” Huck doesn 't really know what he wants to do in the beginning of the book, he just wants to go to a new place and do new things. Jim is that new thing and Huck needs him in order to escape his previous life of his drunk father and being annoyed by Miss Watson. Morrison continues on page 3 by saying “Yet he is depressed by himself and sees nature more often as fearful. But when he and Jim become the only “we,” the anxiety is outside, not within.” Now that Huck has Jim, his anxiety about everything else going on in his life is gone, and now all he has to focus on is …show more content…
One major point being the use of the “N” word, seeing as it is used 219 times. On page 224 of Huck Finn “In the morning we was up at break of day, and down to the nigger cabins to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that fed Jim—if it was Jim that was being fed. The niggers was just getting through breakfast and starting for the fields; and Jim’s nigger was piling up a tin pan with bread and meat and things;“ Just in this small paragraph the “N” word is used four times. Mark Twain 's use of this makes the book racist, not Huck helping Jim to freedom. Another reason Mark Twain’s use of language makes this book racist is because when the slaves talk in the book, he makes them look uneducated. An example of this would be on page 261 Jim says "Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz him dat 'uz bein ' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f 'r to save dis one? ' Is dat like Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You bet he wouldn 't! Well, den, is Jim gywne to say it? No, sah—I doan ' budge a step out 'n dis place 'dout a Doctor, not if it 's forty year!" Twain makes the text for slaves very uneducated and has them talk with a big slang, which shows they are inferior to white people, which makes the text racist. The overall point of this paragraph is to show