Mark Twain, the great American humorist, uses The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to expose how racism affected society during pre-Civil War times. Published in 1884, the main character, Huck, was introduced to the public in Twain’s highly successful book, Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry, the mistreated son of a drunk and thief referred to as Pap in the novel, found money buried by Injun Joe in the previous novel and received 6000 dollars for his labors. The Widow Douglas takes Huck in as a son and hopes to civilize him. Miss Watson, the widow’s sister, has a Negro slave named Jim and she seeks to teach Huck ‘religion’ and it nearly drives him crazy since he likes to smoke, fish, and run around. ‘Pap’ is supposedly dead, drowned in the river, but reappears and confronts his son in his own room, demanding that Huck give him the money. Huck says Judge Thatcher is in charge of it and not long after, Pap kidnaps his son, keeping him three miles up the river in an old shack. Needing to escape, Huck shoots a pig and smears the blood over the cabin floor, hoping to make Pap think he has been murdered. With that, he sets out on a river raft. He meets up with Jim, who has run away after hearing that Miss Watson is going to sell him to a slave trader from New Orleans. Needing to learn what is going on regarding the two of them, Huck dresses as a girl and meets a woman who relates the story of his own ‘murder’ to him. The shocker comes when she says that everyone believes that Jim has killed him for the money. She finds out Huck isn’t a girl and he and Jim flee, knowing that a posse will soon be after Jim for the ‘murder.’ The runaways meet up with a couple of shysters calling themselves the Duke and the King. The thieving actors learn that a very rich local man has died and pose as his long lost English relatives. The dead man’s children, Mary Jane, and her two sisters believe King and Duke and give the pair all their money. Promptly the impersonators sell the family’s three resident slaves and put the girls’ home up for auction. Huck feels guilty about his part in the hoax and steals the six-thousand dollars back from the straw mattress where King has hidden it and places the gold into the coffin with the deceased. He then tells Mary Jane and the men are exposed for the crooks they really are. Luckily for Huck and Jim, King and Duke don’t figure out it is Huck who ratted on them. After trying many failed scams, King and Duke turn in Jim to slave hunters for 200 dollars. Huck finally has to stand up and acknowledge that Jim deserves to be free and ponders on what to do about it. Tom Sawyer shows up and he and Huck dream up a plan to rescue Jim by digging a hole into the shack he is confined and sawing the leg off the bed where Jim is chained. During the slave’s escape, Tom is shot in the leg and Jim helps nurse him after he is recaptured. Tom reveals that Jim is actually free since Miss Watson died two months earlier and freed him in her will. Huck doesn’t want to go home but Jim explains that Pap died right after they escaped and he is in no danger anymore. Jim is happy with his new-found freedom and Tom and Huck return home though Huck is immediately depressed by all the rules holding him down and longs to escape again. The theme of freedom and human rights are prevalent throughout the novel which became a subtle reminder that all people, regardless of race, have an unalienable right to live their life as they choose. While some people might be put off by the overuse of the word ‘nigger’ in the book, they must keep in mind that this book was written in the 1880’s where the term was not yet politically incorrect. Now the demeaning term serves to highlight the injustice constantly bestowed on those of color. The great writer Ernest Hemingway once said: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn . . . There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.” You, as the most important component in this debate, can easily decide the matter after reading this American masterpiece.
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