Huck and Jims Solomon Argument With his lack of education, Jim makes up for it through logic and reasoning, and destroys Huck’s opposition in all the arguments they have in chapter 14. While Huck has been taught the ‘correct’ answers to many of their topics for argument, he lacks the ability to explain the reasoning to Jim, and if there can be no counter-argument offered, Jim’s contentions remain unanswered and valid. Both characters lack the analytical skill to decipher morals and lessons from books and stories, but Jim’s common sense trumps Huck’s know-it-all dismissive demeanor towards Jim. Huck believes he is smarter than Jim because he has been to school before, but his education mares his reasoning skills, and Huck is quickly finding
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In the beginning of the chapter, Huck laments that Jim “was most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger” (76). The mindset of the time was that slaves were inherently stupid and their race allows them to be slaves. To Huck, Jim is an exception, and Twain purposefully writes Jim’s character to exemplify the racist flaws of society that judges a person based on their skin color. When Huck feels cornered by his own lack of education, he believes Jim is the one being pig-headed because “if he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again” (78). The boy does not want to believe he is less intelligent than a slave, especially someone who believes he can fool easily. Instead of facing his prejudices, and his hurt ego, Huck mistakes Jim’s rigor for being stubborn. When Jim uses the analogy of cutting up a dollar in two and it holding no value to either person (78), he likens this anecdote to the one of Soloman wanting to cut the baby in half, to discredit Soloman’s wisdom, and strengthen his own argument that King Soloman is not wise. While Jim does not understand the explanation of the story, neither does Huck, but he won’t admit it because his upbringing taught him to never admit he is wrong, especially to a black …show more content…
However, blame for Huck’s racist disposition does not fall on the boy, but rather the society he lives in and the people around him. After Jim wins every argument they have on the raft, Huck reevaluates what he has been told in the ‘colloquial world’, because Jim is able to refute and explain his own side eloquently, as eloquently as a slave can, to the point that Huck can no longer argue his side any more. The two characters can finally bond like a father and son because the bias Huck has towards Jim changes, and his arguments make entirely more sense than anything the widow or his father tried to tell
In the beginning of the chapter, Huck laments that Jim “was most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger” (76). The mindset of the time was that slaves were inherently stupid and their race allows them to be slaves. To Huck, Jim is an exception, and Twain purposefully writes Jim’s character to exemplify the racist flaws of society that judges a person based on their skin color. When Huck feels cornered by his own lack of education, he believes Jim is the one being pig-headed because “if he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again” (78). The boy does not want to believe he is less intelligent than a slave, especially someone who believes he can fool easily. Instead of facing his prejudices, and his hurt ego, Huck mistakes Jim’s rigor for being stubborn. When Jim uses the analogy of cutting up a dollar in two and it holding no value to either person (78), he likens this anecdote to the one of Soloman wanting to cut the baby in half, to discredit Soloman’s wisdom, and strengthen his own argument that King Soloman is not wise. While Jim does not understand the explanation of the story, neither does Huck, but he won’t admit it because his upbringing taught him to never admit he is wrong, especially to a black …show more content…
However, blame for Huck’s racist disposition does not fall on the boy, but rather the society he lives in and the people around him. After Jim wins every argument they have on the raft, Huck reevaluates what he has been told in the ‘colloquial world’, because Jim is able to refute and explain his own side eloquently, as eloquently as a slave can, to the point that Huck can no longer argue his side any more. The two characters can finally bond like a father and son because the bias Huck has towards Jim changes, and his arguments make entirely more sense than anything the widow or his father tried to tell