Huckleberry Finn Essay #3

Riddhi Jain

AP English: Mr. George

25 August 2009

Huckleberry Finn Essay

Journey Through Society

Children walking barefoot through the woods, blacks forced into labor by their white masters, and gunshots flying past house windows. Racism, poverty, and violence were some of the main principles of the mid-1800s Southern society. Huckleberry Finn faced an internal conflict between the civilized and barbaric choices life offered him. Huck stood clear of making a choice by setting on a journey down the river. He discovered the pros and cons of life and learned right from wrong through his experiences. The societal critique of the antebellum south is seen through the eyes of Huckleberry Finn as he travels down the river.

Black people were not considered human beings in the South. They were known better as the cotton picking, cow feeding illiterates of the white society. If a black man was wearing a nice pair of shoes or a clean-cut shirt, then all hell broke loose. A black person was to never reach the standards of a white person: "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. […] I says to the people, why ain’t this nigger put up at auction and sold?" (Twain 37). Pap was not at all satisfied to see a black man wealthier and better off than himself. It was outrageous for him to learn that black people were free for six months before they were sold as slaves. People refused to understand that black people were equally congenial to white people.

Aside from color, the white society of the South never managed to grasp the fact that black people also had feelings just like the whites did. Miss. Watson had promised Jim that she would not sell him to New Orleans, but Jim overheard her conversation with the slave trader: "I hear ole missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans. [...] She could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it 'uz such a big stack o' money she couldn' resis'" (54). Miss. Watson made a promise to Jim and broke it. Jim trusted her when she said she would never sell him to New Orleans. She broke that trust when she accepted the slave trader’s offer. If Miss. Watson felt that Jim had satisfied her standards of a human being, she would not have treated Jim as an object and allowed money to manipulate her mind. In the Southern society, a person would do anything for their best interest. This included betraying a devoted slave, or abusing their child in order to acquire enough money to benefit them, just like Pap did to Huck.

Huck Finn dehumanized Jim after he tried to explain that a Frenchman was a man. He was getting fed up with Jim and did not bother continuing the conversation: "I see it warn't no use wasting words--you can't learn a nigger to argue" (92). Huck did not want to bother helping Jim understand what he was trying to say. He settled with the Southern stereotype of a black person that Jim was an imbecile. Huck also thought he could get away with tricking Jim into thinking he had dreamed Huck was away from their raft. Jim was no fool and confronted Huck that he was lying: "When I wake up en fine you back agin’, all safe en soun’, de tears come en I could a got down on my knees en kiss’ yo’ foot I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinking ‘bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie" (98). Jim was hurt by Huck's prank. He had been worried about Huck and to find his friend making fun of him hurt his feelings. Huck would not have pulled a foolish trick like that on any white friend of his like Tom Sawyer, yet he thought it was amusing to get a laugh out of Jim’s fluster. Huck, like the rest of Southern society, thought blacks were susceptible who no common sense. Clearly, that was a false assumption.

As Huck continued his journey down the river, he came across two families with a strangely aggressive desire to end each others lives. The Grangerford and the Shepardson family shared an unyielding hatred for one another without a valid reason: "They don't know, now, what the row was about in the first place" (120). All the families wanted were for the other to be killed and gone for good. In Southern society, this warfare and death was accepted. The death of Buck, a mere thirteen years old, died trying to save his family. Nobody had any objections for this innocent child's death. A grown man had no problem shooting this boy and leaving him lying on the ground to bleed. There was no shame in these feudal deeds that were committed in the South. It was all accepted.

Colonel Sherburn shot the drunken Boggs for his disruption in front of the whole town. After he walked away satisfied, the town rallied up together to lynch Sherburn for his foolish act. The violence that was represented on the angry faces of the people showed the mannerism of typical Southern standards. By rallying together brought the town courage to fight Sherburn. He was not afraid of this mob and shot down the confidence each member of it had built up: “The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is- a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass” (159). Throughout the South, families fought side by side to put an end to a dispute. They rallied themselves together with pride and courage, but forgot the logic behind the decision they made to fight. Instead of settling issues with reasoning and fair judgment, the families of the South always resorted to violence.

Throughout the novel, violence was the resolution to all problems the Southern society of the mid-1800s faced. Children carried guns and knives as protection. It was common to see shooting outside a person's house. The influence of the Southern society showed a lack of education, poverty, and corruption of the youth. Blacks had no voice or opinion. Boys were not interested in their studies and girls were to cook and clean at home. Living through the ups and downs of society, Huck Finn and Jim both found their place without being affected by the corruption surrounding them. Through their experiences, Huck and Jim both learned life lessons and how to become better people. It strengthened their confidence and courage to take on anything that crossed their path. Huck Finn ended his journey down the river, yet he started a new one with an unbiased perspective of the world around him.