ipl-logo

Social Power Lens In Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

620 Words3 Pages

The book assigned was Huckleberry Finn and it was written Mark Twain. Huck Finn is thirteen year old boy who starts off in the beginning of the book living with The Widow Douglas who tries to get him civilized and proper. Then his dad comes to town and kidnaps him in a cabin out in the woods. Huck eventually escapes he meets a black man on Jackson Island and they go on many adventures. The social power lens can be applied to this book a lot because there are a lot of social inequalities.. When viewed through the social power lense the book Huckleberry Finn shows the reader that there are many different ways people were classed in many different ways like race, age and wealth.
One of the biggest examples of social power in the book is race. …show more content…

Huck Finn has things in common with the slaves because of his age. He is vulnerable and doesn’t have much say in things unlike an adult. In the book his father wants custody of him and the new judge in town grants it over him living with the Widow Douglas and Judge Thatcher even though his father is an alcoholic and abusive because he is a kid and is seen as property in a way like a slave. Another way age relates to the book and the social power lense is Huck’s father gets mad because Huck is going to school and learning to read and has a fortune. He says “I’ll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better’n what he is.” This means he doesn’t want Huck to be better than him because he is his son. One more example of a social power lense in Huckleberry Finn is wealth. This can also be related to race. If you had a lot of money it didn’t matter what your skin color was you had more power and you didn’t have to be owned as a slave.. In the book Jim talks about how he is rich. "Yes-en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no." (pg. 52) Another example of how wealth comes into play is Huck’s dad. He is poor, illiterate, homeless and is seen very low and almost as a second class citizen by the

Show More
Related
933 Words | 4 Pages

Society makes Huck believe that that is correct, and that is all he believes, until he travels along the river with a slave whom he has befriended named Jim. Initially, Huck sees Jim as only a slave, but that relationship builds until the overriding relationship is achieved, in which Jim is a father-figure in the eyes of Huck. " The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" made history because of its promoting of white people viewing African Americans as equal to themselves, which wasn't common in that day and age. Overall, Huck's outweighing view of Jim is as a patriarch, a sort of dad he never got to

Read More
303 Words | 2 Pages

introduction As humans, we contain the ability to analyze, understand, remember and judge situations in ways that other species cannot. Societal constructs remain as ideas found only within human society, and they develop over time. The constructs often cause no adverse effects, yet in the form of objectification and discrimination these constructs possess the capability to degrade the quality of human lives. In the 19th century novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn author Mark Twain develops the relationship between Jim and Huck as they reject societal constructs and search for freedom, which defies cultural appropriations and beliefs at the time and encourages individuals to challenge rules society perpetuates. literary review Critics

Read More
782 Words | 4 Pages

Society has many effects on people, and of course, it could perhaps be a negative or positive effect toward humankind. The negatives of society as a whole were surely exposed through the eyes of uneducated, immature, Huckleberry Finn. Furthermore, Huck is faced with many struggles throughout the novel, including Miss Watson urging him to become so called “sivilized” (Twain 37), being abused by his filthy, drunk father, Pap, and most of all keeping himself and Jim, the slave, safe from the dangers they encounter. Huck learns many valuable lessons throughout his journey, and changes from an inexperienced boy to a knowledgeable young adult. In addition, Huck rebels against the accepted answers of

Read More
1948 Words | 8 Pages

b) HUCKLEBERRY FINN- Huck is in the low white society class. In this class, he can look at the contrasts of high and low class. As a white boy he can see white society and see the hardships of being outcasts, like black society, due to his low rank in his own. He is a smart outdoors boy

Read More
1019 Words | 5 Pages

He despises conforming to societal standards in these ways and is so desperate to escape that he prefers living with his abusive father, who starves, beats, and isolates him from the world. Huck even more boldly rejects the ideals of society through his relationship with Jim. During the time of slavery, it was not socially acceptable for a white person to view a black person as a fellow human being, let alone befriend him. By the end of the story, Huck deeply cares about Jim, sees him as a father-figure, and essentially risks his life to save him. Through Huck Finn’s individualistic mindset and rejection of society’s standards, he depicts Sherburn’s idea of a true

Read More
160 Words | 1 Pages

Living in the 1800s was a very confusing time for a thirteen-year-old American white boy named Huckleberry Finn. African people were faced with inhuman acts of slavery, prejudice, and discrimination. Choosing between what was right and wrong was a challenge, especially for Huckleberry Finn. Huck’s peers tried to corrupt him into believing that slavery was the norm and black people were to be shunned. Mrs. Watson, for example, was Huck’s adoptive mother whom consistently told Huck to not associate with people of the African culture.

Read More
1236 Words | 5 Pages

He wants all blacks to be enslaved and work on the fields. The core beliefs of the society within The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn serve to promote class segregation and racism. Slavery was established as a cornerstone of their culture during this time period. These quotes show how Mark Twain was influenced socially by the public and individual events in his life during the 1800s. Pap talks a great deal about how much he hates a country where a man can't have control over his son and a country where a black man has the right to vote and be

Read More
740 Words | 3 Pages

The book, The Adventures of Huckleberry and Finn, plays with many different controversial topics such as slavery, racism, abuse, and religion. The topic most talked about in this book is slavery/racism because of Huck’s relationship with Jim, a runaway slave. Throughout the book Huck struggles with how he should treat Jim and if he should stick to his morals and what his conscience is telling him or if he should stick to his heart and do what he personally believes is right. He can either turn Jim in back to his owners and into the slave trade, or he can continue to travel with him and help him gain his freedom. Because of this struggle, Huck’s view of Jim changes based on where he is and who he is associating himself with and these factors

Read More
1102 Words | 5 Pages

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Twain juxtaposes different events showing differences in lifestyles during the time period. Twain does this by showing the differences of characters and how they react in different surroundings. He uses a variety of outlooks on society and its outlooks on the world. Twain also compares the different levels of education through the diversity of race. From those ideas, he compares the differences in economic class through the eyes of Huck.

Read More
1603 Words | 7 Pages

In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim bond closely to one another, regardless of the fact that they belong to different ethnic groups. Huck, a coming-of-age teenage boy, lives in the Southern antebellum society which favors slavery. At the beginning of the book, Twain claims that “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; and persons attempting to find a plot will be shot” (Twain 2). Ironically, through his experiences with Jim, the uncivilized Huck gradually establishes his own moral beliefs, although sometimes struggling against the influence of society.

Read More
1059 Words | 5 Pages

o' money she couldn' resis'" (Twain 54). Later on, Jim says to Huck, "Yes; en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns myself, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars" (Twain 58). In these quotes Jim is talking about how his white owner wanted to sell him to get the money that he is worth.

Read More
821 Words | 4 Pages

Huckleberry Finn is a story about a rambunctious young boy who adventures off down the Mississippi River. “The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain demonstrates a situation where a Huck tries to find the balance between what is right and what is wrong. Huck faces many challenges in which his maturity will play a part in making the correct decision for himself and his friend Jim. Huck becomes more mature by the end of the novel by showing that he can make the correct decisions to lead Jim to the freedom he deserves. One major factor where Huck matures throughout the novel is through his experience.

Read More
939 Words | 4 Pages

To begin, Twain targets Huckleberry Finn's innocence and uses it as a way to show that anyone being raised in a racist, pro-slavery America was conflicted between morals and laws. At first, Huck is a "rebel" in his own mind, so to say, and tries to avoid becoming "sivilized" from the Widow Douglas. He sticks to what he knows, and uses his experience with people and his own judgment to make decisions like an adult, something quite

Read More
1083 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the reader gauges morality through the misadventures of Huck and Jim. Notably, Huck morally matures as his perspective on society evolves into a spectrum of right and wrong. Though he is still a child, his growth yields the previous notions of immaturity and innocence. Likewise, Mark Twain emphasizes compelling matters and issues in society, such as religion, racism, and greed. During the span of Huck’s journey, he evolves morally and ethically through his critique of societal normalities.

Read More
1420 Words | 6 Pages

Huck becomes more mature throughout the novel of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because of the adults that he meets along the way. These adults include the King and the Duke, Jim, and Huck’s father Pap to help Huck to realize how different people can be than by what is expected. Huck learns to not judge someone based on the color of their skin, not to trust everyone, and to notice that all he needs in his life is himself. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not only a story of a slaves journey to freedom, but also a story of a boy growing up into a

Read More

More about Social Power Lens In Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

Related Topics

Open Document