Huckleberry Finn
'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' by Mark Twain has been referred to as the source of all American literature. But it has also been subject to the discussion whether the book is or is not a racist novel. Racism means the unfair treatment of people on the believe 'that racial differences between people are the main influence on their characters and abilities, and especially that one's own race is the best' (from the Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture). In this essay I am going to explain why it is not a racist novel.A important character in this novel is Jim. Jim is a black slave who ran away from his owner because he was afraid of being sold. Together with Huckleberry Finn he went to the South on A reason that this novel is not a racist novel is that Mark Twain does not describe Jim as a negative person. On the contrary, Jim is always ready to help and he is not a mean person with bad intentions. This becomes clear when Huckleberry Finn has doubts about helping Jim or not (page 1383, line 46-48 and page 1384, line 1-4 'I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog
He also does not want to treat other black people bad (page 1367, line 4-5 'and I felt dreadful glad I'd worked it all off onto the niggers and yet hadn't done the niggers no harm by it. Especially in the South slaves were treated badly for a long time. The black slave Jim is not described as a negative person and after all we get all the information of a character in the book. ; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and could everything he could think for me, and how good he always was') Jim does believe in supernatural powers and is very superstitious. Huck does not treat Jim like other white people do. ')There are no good arguments to show that this could be a racist novel. That would not mean that it is a racist novel, because the author just described someone who is a racist (page 1297, line 27-28 'Jim had a wonderful head, for a nigger. It shows that slaves were treated as 'things' instead of human beings. He is visited by other black people for his help and they too believe in it and practise it. But this word was very common in the time of Huckleberry Finn for a black slave and there is nothing racist about that in the novel (page 1246, line 8 'By-end-by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers,')A very important thing is that we see all the events through the eyes of Huckleberry Finn. In this story Jim, as a runaway slave, is captured and cannot come out of his 'prison'. The word 'nigger' is used very often in this book.
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Acceptance Essays
