Huck Finn Racism

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, racism is defined as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” Implicit racism refers to an unconscious judgement of people, usually attributable to the society he or she was raised in; for example, Huck Finn possesses this type of racist behavior, as his opinion on racism and slavery changes drastically throughout his character development, from supporting the idea of slavery to arguing its morality. Huck grew up under the domestic social construct that slaves were not to be treated equally, but to fulfill his every whim and wish. The characters in Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures

Huck is not an inherent racist; Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua asserts this belief in her criticism of the novel: “Is [Huck] a racist? No. Can we presume that a long course of development will have to take place before his voice no longer shows its southern origin? Sadly, yes” (Chadwick-Joshua 2). Huck’s racism is a product of what he has learned from society, and this prejudice becomes apparent in his social interactions with Jim, a slave he befriends. While on an adventure down a river, Huck plays a trick on Jim: when a storm approaches, Huck and Jim are separated, but Huck pretends that he was actually there with Jim the whole time. Underestimating Jim’s intelligence, Huck jumps on another raft, and later returns to the one that he and Jim were on. Upon encountering Jim, Huck is surprised when the former says, “All you wuz thinkin ‘bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck is trash; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en make ‘em ashamed” (Twain 95). When he notices the fusion of panic and anger on Jim’s countenance, Huck feels a sense of guilt for what he initially perceived to be innocent prank. He apologizes, recognizing the human emotion in Jim he had so long been taught was not