Americh Douglass And Huckleberry Finn

The issue about race and the enslavement of blacks has persisted throughout American history, a controversial topic no one can seem to avoid. It has haunted our past and intertwined itself into our textbooks, forever a bloody reminder, staining a moral sin onto the great story of the Americas. Although The Narrative of the Life of Frederich Douglass and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are two very different books, belonging to distinct literary genres, they both have similar thematic preoccupations. At first glance, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn may seem like a humorous comedy, meant to be read to children before bedtime, while The Narrative of the Life of Frederich Douglass could appear as a simple recount of someone’s life, solely …show more content…
These “civilized” societies commonly engaged in brute and hypocritical practices, such as the enslavement of an entire people, while hiding behind a mask of false religion and pretentious civility towards people sharing a lighter skin tone. Jim was black slave that protected and sheltered Huckleberry Finn and could be considered to be the only true father figure in his life, in contrast to his actual Pap, that often “used to always whale [Huck] when he was sober and could get his hands on [him]” (Twain, 11). Despite being in perilous danger, Jim took Hucklebery Finn under his wing and vowed to protect him from harm. When they stumbled across the boy’s dead father, he told Huck “doan’ look at his face” (Twain, 50) to protect him from the traumatizing experience of seeing his Pap’s dead corpse. Huck also described him as a “mighty good nigger” (Twain, 155) and the slave is depicted as the most caring, reliable character, despite being black and therefore “less civilized”. Jim is free of the hypocritical and damaging beliefs that the white society harbored, and he watched over Huck without any alternative motives, unlike many of the other white characters. These negative labels placed on African Americans were unfair, and often without solid basis. In the …show more content…
These author’s genres and approaches were each unique and differed in terms of structure, story, and audience, but the intended effect was the same. Each book subtly pointed out and criticized the hypocrisy of our nation, trying to hide our guilt, and sin with a weak cry of religion and civility, desperately trying to cover our wrongdoings with these feeble arguments against the inhumanity of slavery. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass delved into some of the cruelest aspects of slavery, exposing the falsehood of our one-dimensional belief we were exemplary models of God’s words and that America was the apotheosis of formality and good