Being Exposed to Racism in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

In the book, Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, there are many opinions on the idea of racism throughout the book and if people, especially young readers, should be exposed to it. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been considered as one of Mark Twain’s finest piece of works. The main characters in the book include Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Jim. The book tells a story about Huck Finn who grows up as the son of a drunken father. He then decides to run away into the middle of the Mississippi River to a place called Jackson’s island. Huck finds a slave, Jim, who is Miss Watson’s slave. They both decide that they want to run away to the free states. Along the way of running away, they run into many obstacles and face basically nothing but problems. One problem that they faced was meeting up with two thieves. Another example of a problem that they faced was getting into a quarrel, which the Shepherdsons and Grangerfords were a part of. Finally they conquered the problems that they were a part of and move on with their journey. Huck Finn goes to the Phelps’ who coincidently are related to Tom Sawyer and he finds that they have been expecting Tom. Huck pretends as if he were Tom because the Phelps’ did not know otherwise. Eventually news comes that Jim is finally free from slavery because his slave owner, Miss Watson, was dying and freed him before she passed away. Concluding in the story, Huck decided that he will make his journey to the north and decides to leave with no single individual person knowing anything about it. Perhaps the most considered idea of the book is the issue of race. There are many critics that feel this issue is too complex for young readers, and there are some that feel that it is important for...

... middle of paper ...

...cribed the man as "a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger" (Telgen 9). He thinks that the now-free man should be sold off at an auction. In Pap’s views, every single person of the black race should not have any rights whatsoever and should be treated as slaves. He feels that they should all be a white man’s property and nothing more then that. Huck had to grow up with a father that had these harsh views on blacks and obviously in a way the views had to have been passed down to him as well. Critics have different views on the topic of racism when it comes to this book. Some feel that the racist views in the story are almost a sarcastic idea on the point of racism while others feel the complete opposite. They have a hard time conforming the images that the book shows of Jim and the other slaves with Huck Finn’s devotion to help free Jim (Telgen 9).