Examples Of Hypocrisy In Huckleberry Finn

Humans are some of the most oblivious beings to exist. They are naturally hypocritical and quick to blame others with petty offenses without looking in the mirror first. The hypocrisy is also a common thread in human hate. Many hate-filled humans will call their victims weak and not realizing that they are in fact the weak ones themselves. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain uses the racist, social climate of the 1830’s and the 1840’s to illustrate the idea that humans are hypocritical beings as they treat others unfairly as means of abusing their own faults and insecurities.
For the duration of the novel, Twain illustrates hypocrisy in humans using the time period of the 1830’s and 1840’s. Racism is something that Huck observes

It was common in the early 1800’s for slave owners to restrict slaves contact with life outside of their plantation. Masters felt that this would reduce the risk of revolt and prompt the slaves to be completely within the plantation and their work. (Christian 90).During their journey, Jim began to fantasize aloud as to what he would do when he arrived in a free state. He planned to save enough money from working to buy his wife’s freedom, and then he and his wife would attempt to work to save enough money to free their kids or hire someone to steal his kids from their master. Throughout the novel, Huck has been very vocal about his dreams to get away from the Widow’s house and from Pap. After Jim shared his dreams for his future Huck becomes irritated. He thinks to himself, “It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, ‘Give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell’ Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn't even know; a man that hadn't ever done me no harm” (Twain 105). Huck becomes annoyed at Jim for

Humans are hypocritical as shown through the relationship between racist Caucasians and African Americans. Plantation owners characterized their slaves as weak, yet the masters being the weak ones. Plantation owners rely on slaves to do their farm work and without them, they lack economic success as they do with their slaves. The duke and the king become outraged after they believe their stolen gold is stolen by slaves. They verbally berate the slaves but fail to recognize their own faults of stealing and conning others. Huck criticizes Jim for having “immoral” goals for when he is free. However, throughout their journey, Huck steals, lies, and used to dream of when he was free as well. It’s only bad when Jim does it because he’s African American and was previously enslaved. Huck doesn’t have an apparent plan for when they get free like Jim does and partly as a result of his unpreparedness. Pap victimizes a free, multiracial man while voting because of his skin. He saw the man as unentitled to vote as he felt the man should have been enslaved, yet the man was more educated and civil that Pap himself. Pap himself is uneducated and feels threatened by the fact that someone society painted as an inferior