Racism_in_'Huck_Finn'

"Notice: the following book has been banned from this library for racial controversy issues: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The." This is an imitation of a notice that may have been found in libraries, purely because of the racial content in the book. In the past, some libraries have banned this novel, believing that Mark Twain, the author, was himself being racist, whereas more likely than not, this was a belief he gave his characters to help give them their personality. So what of these characters then' They are meant to be fictional characters that fit a stereotype of some sort. In this particular novel, the character Jim, a runaway slave, is the center of the racism. Most of the racist themes deal with him, as he is the primary African-American in the novel. Racism then, is the most obvious motif of the book, and is used to build the adventure from the very start. At some point while reading about Huck's adventure, the reader questions what function racism plays in the novel, as it is constantly present. "Those who first condemned the novel as being 'trash' objected to it on grounds of both literary merit and racial, social, and economic class: the rejected its portrayal of a slave and an uneducated, poor boy as the most typical kind of American citizens." (James) The fact that a black man is portrayed as a typical American citizen was an outrageous concept. Thus, we analyze Jim, a black man and Miss Watson's slave. Twain attempts to make Jim seem as human as possible: "...and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so." (Twain) Huck didn't find it natural for black men to care as much as white men, but when Jim begins to seem distraught, Huck starts to think otherwise. This is Twain's way of proving the stereotype to exist that is given to children by their parents, that black men have no feelings. So with this, Twain gets us onto Jim's "side" and makes us feel bad for him. So Twain successfully weaves racism into a fictional story to help build the plot. The novel isn't "trash," and Jim really is human. So what does the reader get from this' An understanding of the time the novel was written about, and some context for the adventure. So then, Twain really isn't racist, just a writer using racism as an outlet for all the hypocrisy of society. But that is a whole different subject meant for another time; or just another expert to analyze. Citation James, Pearl. "An overview of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in, an essay for Exploring Novels, Gale." (1998). Rpt. in Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 June 2010.