Common Themes Of Racism In Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn, written by Samuel L. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, is a book set before the Civil War from a young man’s point of view on society. This growing teenage boy, Huckleberry Finn, is the main character of the story along with Jim, who is a runaway slave. Both Huck and Jim are runaways from their old lives, Huck from his awful drunken father and the requirements of the society, and for Jim slavery. During the course of events Huck finds that he likes Jim even though society is telling him that to be acquaintances with an African American is wrong and even a sin. Huck and Jim are trying hard not to be found out and a series of adventures throughout the story make it really challenging on them both physically and mentally. …show more content…
Racism in this books is mainly towards blacks although there is some classism in the book. The racism towards African Americans is seen through how society views them and in slavery. In this book society is telling Huck that he should think of African Americans as slaves, who are stupid and not fully human.So whenever Huck helps or is a friend to Jim, he is conflicted because society says that he is sinning and breaking the law. White trash is shown through Huck’s drunken Pap. Pap is the only character, besides a couple rude families and robbers, in the book who nobody likes. Pap always got drunk, beat his child, took money, and (it 's assumed) stole. Now if he were alive he would be in jail before anyone was hurt, but the society back then allowed him to do what he did with very little or no punishment. Another theme in the book is childhood independence. Many times Huck, Tom and the other boys will go wherever they want almost whenever they want to. Now, in the modern time, it seems like what those boys did would never be allowed now for these reasons. First kids in this time don’t go outside as much as they used to because of video games and second no parent would let their kids go into caves and be in gangs and skip school as often as theses boys do because of safety. In Huck’s time nobody was to worried that a man with a gun would kill people for being a certain religion or that anyone would bomb someone. They …show more content…
The book shows this as slavery was obviously still legal in the states and no one was worried about owning slaves. It can be understood in the book that being a “Christian” was the thing to be if you wanted anybody to like you, which lead to many false teachings and people being “Christians” just so that other would like and accept them as a citizen. The two main examples of this are when the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons, two rivaling families, go to church and say how true and beautiful the sermon on forgiveness was. Then, they go right back to killing each other over something that happened so many years ago that nobody remembers what it was almost at all! Another time two thieves preach a very dramatic sermon to get money and trick all the women in the congregation into weeping and giving them their money. Many people back then, besides calling themselves Christians, would have their own set of values for themselves and for someone else. One example of this is… Besides all the hypocrisy in the culture, religion, and values the politics, which are not mentioned too much in the book, are also confused. Pap, Huck’s dad, shows the reader that the government back then was not as hard on the citizens as it is now, both in a good and bad way. For example Pap would be arrested for doing just one of the things that he did in the book in these current times. Then he could get away