Huckleberry Finn It Just Flips Out Analysis

If we were to take a peek at how society functioned in the past compared to now, the possibility of being shocked is hardly zero percent. Fundamentally, our society will probably forever live on in the status quo of the current age, which in turn could turn out to be either extremely good or horribly bad. For example, racism is a huge topic that is often discussed in debates and sometimes is a common topic among many authors of popular best-selling books or interesting articles, and is something that can tip the scale of right and wrong to make it so that the status quo changes. When examined together, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and The “N” Word: It Just Slips Out by Allen Francis show that racism has dissolved in American

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and his father, who is known as the town drunk, went into town and Huck’s father starts talking to another white man and complaining, “...here was a free nigger there from Ohio—a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane—the awful- est old gray-headed nabob in the State. And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the wust. They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin.” (Twain 6.11) Even though Huck’s father is a drunk and is probably just spewing out his jealousy of this African American man, he’s still speaking about how most white citizens in those days would have felt upon seeing a free African American man.

Through using Huck as his sample of the individual, the river as a symbol of self and land as a symbol of society, Twain shows the struggle of the average person just trying to live their life and the choices that we make can be heavily influenced by where we grow up. When traveling on the river with Jim later in the story, Huck plays a mean prank on Jim. After Jim finally realizes that Huck is teasing him, he gets mad and then “it was fifteen minutes before [Huck] could go humble [himself] to a nigger; but [he] [did] it, and [he] wasn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, [either]. [He] didn’t do [Jim] [anymore] mean tricks, and [he] wouldn’t [have] done that one if [he] [had known] it would make [Jim] feel that way.” (Twain 15.49) If they hadn’t been away from society at that time, Huck may have never felt it was right to apologize to Jim. Under the watchful and racist eye of society, Huck could have been forced to believe it was not okay to treat Jim as a person, instead, to treat Jim like a dog and assume it would be okay to not care about Jim’s personal