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Problems with racism in literature
Literary themes about racism
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Where does racism begin? Is it embedded in us the day we are born? Do we wake up one morning and decide to be racist? Racism is an aspect that is taught to us from daily observations. Normally, we grasp the concept to be racist by our parents or guardian. In the story “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, the protagonist and narrator of the novel is young white, male, named Huck Finn. Huck lives in St. Petersburg, Missouri, a town on the Mississippi River. This novel takes place a few years prior to the Civil War. During this time, slavery was still permitted. African Americans around that time were treated brutally. Many whites owned slaved, and Huck Finn’s guardians, Widow Douglass and Miss Watson are one of them. They both own Jim, a runaway slave that Huck later meets. Huck is recently awarded with money, and Huck’s violent father, comes to retrieve Huck and his money from Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, the sisters that adopt Huck. Huck fakes his own death and runs away, and on the run finds Jim. Jim decides to run away after he hears Miss Watson is going to sell Jim to a plantation that would then separate him from his family. While on their voyage, Huck and Jim form a close friendship. Despite societies norms and judgments that Huck will face by being Jims friend, Huck still defends and cares for Jim. Huck is a young boy that is sometimes conflicted between societies expectations and what his conscious feels. Huck is superstitious, naive, intelligent, and heart driven.
Huck has many characteristics in the novel, many are portrayed but one important one that is voiced throughout the novel is his superstition. Huck is very superstitious. Some of the superstitions he has are derived from the time period. According ...
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... Race in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Jackson, Mississippi. P. 1-159. 1998. Print.
Johnson, Claudia Durst. “Race in Mark Twain’s Adventure of Huckleberry Finn”. Detroit, Michigan. 2009. Print.
Johnson, Claudia Durst. “Understanding Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. A student casebook to issues, sources and historical documents. Westport, Connecticut. P. 1-246. 1996. Print.
Quirk, Tom. “The Flawed Greatness of Huckleberry Finn”. The Magazine of the Mizzou Alumni Association. University of Missouri. 21 May 2013. Web.
Twain, Mark. “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. 2nd ed. Ed. Graff, Gerald and James Phelan. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 1-883. Print.
Wood, Daniel Davis. “Character Synthesis in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. The Explicator. Academic Share Research. 12 June 2013. Web.
Kaplan, Justin. "Born to Trouble: One Hundred Years of Huckleberry Finn." Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Eds. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. Boston: St. Martin's, 1995. 348-359.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel written by Mark Twain during the late 1800’s (Mintz). The book brought major controversy over the plot, as well as the fact that it was a spin-off to his previous story, Adventures of Tom Sawyer. This book has remained a success due to Twain’s interesting techniques of keeping the audience’s attention. Chapters eleven and twelve of “Huckleberry Finn,” uses a first person limited point of view to take advantage of the use of dialogue while using many hyperboles to add drama to entertain the reader by creating description within the story without needing to pause and explain.
	In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops criticism of society by contrasting Huck and Jim’s life on the river to their dealings with people on land. Twain uses the adventures of Huck and Jim to expose the hypocrisy, racism, and injustices of society.
Kaplan, Justin. "Born to Trouble: One Hundred Years of Huckleberry Finn." Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Eds. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. Boston: St. Martin's, 1995. 348-359.
Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels ever written. The story is about Huck, a young boy who is coming of age and is escaping from his drunken father. Along the way he stumbles across Miss Watson's slave, Jim, who has run away because he overhead that he would be sold. Throughout the story, Huck is faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not to turn Jim in. Mark Twain has purposely placed these two polar opposites together in order to make a satire of the society's institution of slavery. Along the journey, Twain implies his values through Huck on slavery, the two-facedness of society, and represents ideas with the Mississippi River.
Are humans naturally good, or evil? Many people argue both ways. It has been argued for centuries, and many authors have written about it. One example of this is Samuel Clemens's, more commonly known as Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book follows a young boy, named Huckleberry, and a runaway slave, named Jim, as they both run away. Huck runs away to escape being civilized, while Jim runs away from slavery. Together, they talk about life, philosophy, and friends. As they travel down the Mississippi River, both Huck and Jim learn various life lessons. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck witnesses the depravity of human nature on his journey on the Mississippi River.
Lester, Julius. “Morality and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Satire or Evasion?: Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn. Ed. James S. Leonard, Thomas A. Tenney, and Thadious M. Davis. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1992. 199-207. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 161. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
When taking a look at Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, racism is a large theme that seems to be reoccurring. What some may think to be racism in Twain's words, can also be explained as, good story telling appropriate to the era the story takes place in. Twain himself has been suggested as a racist based on the fact that he uses the word "nigger" in his book. However, Twain was an avid abolitionist. For those who claim that Twain was a racist, they must have only been looking out for themselves and not those who are willing to learn about the past, whether it be ugly or perfect.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is considered a classic novel from the realism period of American Literature that accurately depicts social conventions from pre-civil war times. Despite this reputation as a historical lens of life on the Mississippi River, elements of blatant racism overshadow the regionalist and realist depictions. Huck Finn does not promote racism because all derogatory or racist remarks are presented as a window to life during the 1850s, in a satirical context, or to show Mark Twain's moral views on racism. Huckleberry Finn accurately presents the mistreatment, abuse, and hatred that African Americans faced in pre-civil war times. Huck Finn portrays racism as a part of life and as a social normality accepted by most people.
Despite all the criticism, of racism and other questionable material for young readers, Mark Twain’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is a superbly written novel, which in the opinion of this reviewer should not be remove the literary cannon. Twain’s novel is a coming of age story that teaches young people many valuable lessons and to some extend makes students reexamine their own lives and morals. The most common argument for its removal from the literary canon is that the novel is too racist; it offends black readers, perpetuates cheap slave-era stereotypes, and deserves no place on today’s bookshelves. However one must ask if Twain is encouraging traditional southern racism or is Twain disputing these idea.
This essay will analyze the themes of religion, slavery, and democracy in the book Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. By exploring these themes that lie behind the book’s veneer, we can understand Twain’s objective for writing this book.
Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through much criticism and denunciation has become a well-respected novel. Through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy, Huckleberry Finn, Twain illustrates the controversy of racism and slavery during the aftermath of the Civil War. Since Huck is an adolescent, he is vulnerable and greatly influenced by the adults he meets during his coming of age. His expedition down the Mississippi steers him into the lives of a diverse group of inhabitants who have conflicting morals. Though he lacks valid morals, Huck demonstrates the potential of humanity as a pensive, sensitive individual rather than conforming to a repressive society. In these modes, the novel places Jim and Huck on pedestals where their views on morality, learning, and society are compared.
In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain illustrates several traits that are common in mankind. Among these traits are those that are listed in this essay. Through characters in the story Twain shows humanity's innate courageousness. He demonstrates that individuals many times lack the ability to reason well. Also, Twain displays the selfishness pervasive in society. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, many aspects of the human race are depicted, and it is for this reason that this story has been, and will remain, a classic for the ages.
...cal Edition, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, An Authoritative Text Backgrounds and Sources Criticism. Ed. and Trans. Sculley Bradley, Richmond Croom Beaty, E. Hudson Long, and Thomas Cooley. New York: Norton, 1977. 328-335.
Twain, Mark, and Cynthia Johnson. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.