The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Critical Essay

The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Critical Essay Essay, Research Paper The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the noblest, greatest, and most adventuresome novel in the world. Mark Twain definitely has a style of his own that depicts a realism in the novel about the society back in antebellum America. Mark Twain definitely characterizes the protagonist, the intelligent and sympathetic Huckleberry Finn, by the direct candid manner of writing as though through the actual voice of Huck. Every word, thought, and speech by Huck is so precise it reflects even the racism and black stereotypes typical of the era. And this has lead to many conflicting battles by various readers since the first print of the novel, though inspiring some. Says John H. Wallace, outraged by Twain?s

constant use of the degrading and white supremacist word ?nigger?, ?[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is] the most grotesque example of racist trash ever written? (Mark Twain Journal by Thadious Davis, Fall 1984 and Spring 1985). Yet, again to counter that is a quote by the great American writer Ernest Hemingway, ?All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn?it?s the best book we?ve had?There has been nothing as good since? (The Green Hills of Africa [Scribner?s. 1953] 22). The controversy behind the novel has been and will always remain the crux of any readers is still truly racism. Twain surely does use the word ?nigger? often, both as a referral to the slave Jim and any African-American that Huck comes across and as the epitome of

insult and inferiority. However, the reader must also not fail to recognize that this style of racism, this malicious treatment of African-Americans, this degrading attitude towards them is all stylized of the pre-Civil War tradition. Racism is only mentioned in the novel as an object of natural course and a precision to the actual views of the setting then. Huckleberry Finn still stands as a powerful portrayal of experience through the newfound eyes of an innocent boy. Huck only says and treats the African-American culture accordingly with the society that he was raised in. To say anything different would truly be out of place and setting of the era. Twain?s literary style in capturing the novel, Huck?s casual attitude and candid position, and Jim?s undoubted acceptance of the

oppression by the names all signifies this. Twain?s literary style is that of a natural southern dialect intermingled with other dialects to represent the various attitudes of the Mississippian region; he does not intend to outrightly suggest Negro inferiority. Had Twain intended racial bigotry, he would not write the about the sympathies of Huck towards Jim. This can easily be seen in that Huck does, in various points in the book, realize Jim to be a white equivalent at times. Huck tells the reader, when he realizes that Jim misses his own family and children, ?I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their?n? (150). I do believe that Twain?s literary style, that is, his informal language through Huck, is more a captivation of thoughts as though

in a conversation than as an intended use of white supremacist inclination. Any words that seem to degrade African-Americans is merely a freelance use of Southern jargon and not deliberate. That is, Huck talks the way he knows how and was taught according to the society then to stylize a specific treatment at black slaves. However, his sympathies towards Jim throughout the river odyssey has taught Huck to overcome certain stereotypes, such as black stupidity and apathy, but not quite thoroughly to rebel against societal prejudices. Huckleberry still believes Jim to be irrelevant and pig-headed at times, as in their exchange over the Biblical story of King Solomon and the French language. Huck does not tell Jim but to the reader,? If he got a notion in his head once, there warn?t