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Huckleberry Finn Prejudice

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a renowned book that portrays Twain’s thoughts on racism against African Americans. The book is told by Huck Finn, a boy who faked his death to escape from his abusive father and along his journey encounters a runaway slave. The slave, Jim, stands out amongst the other characters in the book, known for his outstanding loyalty and kindness towards Huck Finn. As years passed, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn grew increasingly controversial as readers became more aware of its racism and prejudice. The book is often debated whether it should stay in the classroom because of its prejudice and racial stereotypes about the characterization of Jim. Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as an …show more content…

Mark Twain also portrays Jim as a violent man. In chapter 15, Jim explains how he beat his daughter because he believed she wasn’t listening to his instructions and how he sent her sprawling: “En wid dat I fetch' her a slap side de head dat sind her a-sprawlin'. Den I went into the other room, en 'uz gone 'about ten minutes; en when I come back, dar was dat doo a-singin' away, like he didn' know the difference betwixt good treatment en bad.” Twain reinforces the stereotype that African Americans are inherently violent and lack control over their emotions. Twain accentuates the stereotype by portraying Jim as an unintelligent man because of his speech patterns and lack of formal education. Many readers of “Minstrel Shackles and Nineteenth-Century" "Liberality" in "Huckleberry Finn" by Fredrick Woodard and Donnarae MacCann is an article that voices their opinion on Twain’s writing of Jim. They believed that Jim was conceived with many common attributes that were given by other 19th-century authors and how his characterization is shackled by White Supremacist presumptions on African

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They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it” (Twain 2). While Huck was talking about snuff here, it really sets the theme for the entire novel. Nobody knows anything about Jim, except that he is a slave and a “nigger.” Nobody knows him except for his lost family and Huck, who discovers that Jim is more human, and has better values than any of the “white” people Huckleberry meets along the way. Mark Twain used the characters of Huckleberry and Jim not only to portray the issue of racial prejudice in society but to show how it may be overcome.

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