In James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, and Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the central characters go on journeys in a pursuit of self identity. Following a common theme of travel, Johnson’s ex-coloured man discovers what it is to live as a person of colour while Jim and “Huck” learn lessons about freedom and racial cohesion in their time spent together on the run. In their individual growth, characters learn to better relate and respond to the larger society of their times.
Hans Christian Anderson once said, “To travel is to live.” In travelling, characters are displaced from familiarity and forced to build on their own abilities for survival. In exploring and experiencing new places, characters mature
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They become travel companions after a series of events in which Huck is believed to be dead, and Jim, on the run. When he is first introduced, Jim is “Miss Watson’s big nigger” (Twain, 3), merely a servant Huck plays tricks on. As they progress on their travels, Huck not only refers to Jim by name, but became more of a companion rather than a servant. He is given a say in their plans, “[Huck] must go in the dark and look sharp” (Twain, 41) and Huck is receptive to his ideas and advice. Having been raised with the clear distinction of race and the idea that there should be no “free nigger[s]” (Twain, 21), Huck and Jim’s relationship shows a remarkable transformation from a servant-master relationship to one that is less prejudiced, travelling having given Huck the opportunity to see Jim as a person, rather than a servant, and Jim given the freedom of expression. Most significant would be Huck’s willingness to see their cooperative effort as “we” (Twain, 60). Twain distinguishes the characters in the way they speak, but the fact that Jim’s voice is not silenced, him relating his story about his riches, “[he’s] ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich agin” (Twain, 35), and even arguing with Huck, “You answer me dat!” (Twain, 34) These instances present the maturity that Huck has undergone over the time spent travelling with Jim, and Jim’s growing confidence in …show more content…
He eventually questions if he is merely a “privileged spectator” or a “coward” and “deserter” (Johnson, 99) for having chosen to live undisturbed as a white man. On the contrary, the master – slave relationship is never truly eradicated in Huckleberry Finn with the distinct differences between Huck and Jim, and yet Huck is seen to have matured from the days of “[letting]... go” (Twain, 8) of religious beliefs that he is unable to reconcile with having a certainty towards his choice of actions, knowing he “got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and [he] knowed it” (Twain, 161-162). In the growth in understanding, he has the confidence in himself to get over his indecision and make a choice that he is able to live with. While the ex-coloured man has the luxury of two worlds in which he can identify with, Huck learns to alter the expectations of the white worldview ingrained in him and overrides it with what he has discovered for himself. As such, while identities are interlinked with race, the lessons that the characters take away and apply to their lives are distinctive to their situations and thus creating very different understandings of themselves and the world around
This book proves that not everyone who grew up around racism was cruel, as Huck began to love Jim for who he is, despite the society he grew up in. An example of Huck maturing could come from chapter forty, "I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say - so it was all right, now, and I told Tom I was agoing for a doctor." (Twain 301). This quote clearly shows that Huck is maturing, and seeing past the color of Jim's skin. The book shows us how hard it was to grow up in a racist society and not be racist.
Right off the bat starting with Tom’s Gang, Twain satirizes these romanticist tropes relentlessly. Thus, by not following romanticism, Twain presents slavery and racism wholly, as it was without any rose-tinted glasses. This is a significant factor in the novel, and one of the reasons such controversy has stirred around this perceived issue. In the same sense, Twain embraces realism, attempting to give a true to life representation of the world Huck and Jim live in. Towards the end, plans to free Jim have been labeled by critics as a return to minstrelsy, but under the surface they represent the systematic oppression of freed slaves and African Americans.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn subverts racist beliefs through the development of Huck’s friendship with Jim and through Twain's satirization of the KKK. Mark Twain subverts racism through the development of Huck and Jims friendship in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The two form such a close friendship, leading to a father son bond. In the novel, Huck enjoys spending time with Jim; he comments how “‘This is nice,’ I says. ‘I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else but here’”
The old saying goes, “People can’t change,” but we can, just like Huckleberry Finn changes. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn is a young boy with a big imagination. He loves adventures, and playing tricks, but throughout the book, he starts to change. Huck changes in several ways; he sees African-Americans differently, he starts to believe in superstition, and he also changes the way he acts toward people. One of the ways Huck has changed, is the way he sees and treats African-Americans.
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.
When Huck finds out who took him, he travels to his home, only to find out that the owner is Tom Sawyer’s Uncle Silas. When Huck runs into Tom’s Aunt, she mistakes him for Tom, and he decides to go along with it. Unfortunately for Huck, Tom arrives a short while after, but they devise a plan, Tom pretends to be a cousin, and together they find a way to get Jim out of custody. I think this section of the book really shows Huck’s care and compassion for Jim and that he’s willing to travel to a complete stranger’s house and pretend to be someone he’s not to save him from slavery. I also think that this relationship between Huck and Jim is Twain’s way of showing that everyone deserves to be loved and care for, no matter they’re race or ethnicity.
In Mark Twain's satirical novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn published in 1885, Huck finds himself thrown into various wild ventures. While he often enjoys himself, it comes at the expensive of Jim, a former slave striving to escape to freedom along with Huck. Jim is either left alone in the wild, put in dangerous situations or used to add entertainment and amusement to Huck's journey. The reader is often left troubled, wondering where Jim is or if he is even alive. Twain uses the way Jim is often thrown to the side during Hucks travels to draw attention to the attitudes toward and treatment of African Americans often found in 1845.
Everybody has someone in his or her life who teaches him or her how to be a better person. Throughout the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses Jim, a slave, as a source of symbolism for Huck’s maturity. First, Jim teaches Huck about what it truly means to be civilized. Next, Jim shows Huck about the value of family. Lastly, Jim teaches Huck about racial inequality and how to accept people.
When one reads The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, themes involving morality and conscience become heavily prevalent. The protagonist, Huckleberry Finn, portrays a manifest dynamic character. His actions and statements ranging from the outset of the novel through its ending show Huck’s development of a more concise sense of morality and conscience prevailing over the societal influences of “right and wrong”. In the nineteenth century American South, the inescapable system of slavery and social hierarchy would have discouraged an interracial bond. Yet Huck, while escaping his abusive father, chooses to befriend Jim, the runaway slave whom he encounters, and shares a pivotal stage in his life with his newfound companion, whereby contradicting
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.
The black man on the back porch is afraid of the rattle snake because it is bad luck, or the innocent little slave is quick to believe everything one tells them at the drop of the hat. These are just some of the many racist stereotypes of the 1840s. A character named Jim is the star African American whom Twain bestoys the mission of being the stereotypical black man to prove a point. He along with his much more pallor companion Huck go on exciting adventures that unfold the events which expose the racist conduct of the time. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain saturates his novel with potent images of acute racism severe enough as to create a satirical mien that exposes the absurdity of prejudice.
This was important at the end when Huck was debating on his action plan after Jim was sold back into slavery by the King and the Duke. He could either choose to abandon Jim or he could try and save him from captivity. This was a time when Huck thought about his friendship with Jim. He remembers all the time with Jim when he “would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now.” These positive and sweet thoughts of Jim’s character makes Huck choose to save him rather than abandon him.
Mark Twain emphasizes the theme that a person's morals are more powerful than the corrupt influence of society in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Based on how Huck Finn views the world and forms his opinions, he does not know the difference between right and wrong. In the novel, Huck escapes civilized society. He encounters a runaway slave, Jim, and together they travel hopes of freedom. But along the way, Huck and Jim come across troubles that have Huck questioning his motives.
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
Naturally, as his bond with Jim cultivates, Huck unknowingly treats him as a human. Through Huck’s sensibility, he states, “It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no kings nor dukes at all … I hadn’t no objections, ‘long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn’t no use to tell Jim, so I didn’t tell him” (Twain 125). Correspondingly, Huck gains a consideration for Jim and his personal feelings, which he expresses nonchalantly through motley aspects of their journey.