Huck Finn
Though at first it may appear that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a very racist and offending book, in truth it is a story of a boy growing to accept a black man as a friend. When people look beyond the words to the meaning of the story, themes of growth and interracial acceptance appear. The theme of interracial acceptance is portrayed through this story by the changes in Huck and Jim’s relationship. In the beginning of the story, Jim is looked down upon as if he were less than human. He is referred to as “Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim” (page 21) rather than called by his proper name. The word “nigger” is used very often as a demeaning term in the first few chapters, as Twain tried to portray the fact that Jim was thought of as a lesser being than Huck and the others. A little ways into the book, when Huck is hiding on Jackson’s island after running away from his father, Jim begins to make more of an appearance as a character rather than a part of …show more content…
As Jim’s character is developed throughout the story, he grows immensely, beginning as a “stereotypical nigger”: superstitious, gullible, and unintelligent; he ends the book as a “man”: intelligent, relatable and loving. If this book was truly racist, Jim would not have grown at all, and would have remained static rather than dynamic. In the first few chapters, he is highly gullible and superstitious. He is portrayed as an unintelligent creature. As he and Huck travel down the Mississippi, however, he grows to be portrayed as a father, a husband, and an intelligent man, at least in Huck’s eyes. We learn that he had children, and loved them, when he speaks of his daughter, saying, “Oh, she was plumb deef and dumb… en I’d ben a-treatin her so!” (page 184). He displays a wish to save them from slavery as well, an empathy that would not have been shown in a racist
Though at first it may appear that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a very racist and offending book, in truth it is a story of a boy growing to accept a black man as a friend. When people look beyond the words to the meaning of the story, themes of growth and interracial acceptance appear. The theme of interracial acceptance is portrayed through this story by the changes in Huck and Jim’s relationship. In the beginning of the story, Jim is looked down upon as if he were less than human. He is referred to as “Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim” (page 21) rather than called by his proper name. The word “nigger” is used very often as a demeaning term in the first few chapters, as Twain tried to portray the fact that Jim was thought of as a lesser being than Huck and the others. A little ways into the book, when Huck is hiding on Jackson’s island after running away from his father, Jim begins to make more of an appearance as a character rather than a part of …show more content…
As Jim’s character is developed throughout the story, he grows immensely, beginning as a “stereotypical nigger”: superstitious, gullible, and unintelligent; he ends the book as a “man”: intelligent, relatable and loving. If this book was truly racist, Jim would not have grown at all, and would have remained static rather than dynamic. In the first few chapters, he is highly gullible and superstitious. He is portrayed as an unintelligent creature. As he and Huck travel down the Mississippi, however, he grows to be portrayed as a father, a husband, and an intelligent man, at least in Huck’s eyes. We learn that he had children, and loved them, when he speaks of his daughter, saying, “Oh, she was plumb deef and dumb… en I’d ben a-treatin her so!” (page 184). He displays a wish to save them from slavery as well, an empathy that would not have been shown in a racist