Huck Finn

Racism and Slavery in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn Throughout Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, racism and slavery are two major thematic concepts pulsing through the novel. Through incidents, comments made by the characters, and statements by the narrator, Twain enables the readers to observe the attitudes of the people concerning discrimination and involuntary servitude before the Emancipation Proclamation. Not only does his use of language and comments help the reader better comprehend the social attitudes of the time period, it also enlightens the audience of Twain’s attitude towards slavery and racism. Twain is known for voicing his opinions and observations through characters, and in this novel it is no different. The audience is able to get a clear insight on Twain’s opinion that slavery is a hypocrisy. In Huckleberry Finn, the author is able to develop the major themes of racism and slavery through the plan to help Jim escape, his comparison of Pap and Jim, Huck’s internal conflict whether to hide Jim’s identity, and Pap’s argument about blacks enabling the audience to infer Twain opposed the institution of slavery in such societies whom viewed themselves as advanced. At the beginning of the novel the readers find out Huck is living with Widow Douglas and Miss Watson because Huck’s father is a poor parental figure. Then Pap unfortunately decides to make a surprise visit to see his son. Huck sees and describes Pap’s appearance, “There warn’t no color in his face, where his faced showed; it was white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl…” (14). Although Pap was a white male, Twain does not give him favorable characteristics. This was odd because most novels in this time period gave white people likeable characteristics. Huck describes him as having a bad aura, explaining Pap only came to visit his son to get his money. Pap says, “That’s why I come. You git me that money tomorrow -I want it” (15). This shows the readers he