Mark Twain’s 1884 classic “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a story about slavery and Black subject dehumanization told from the perspective of Huckleberry “Huck” Finn; a barely literate teen who escapes a drunken, abusive father by faking his death. In the process, Finn encounters Jim – who was escaping slavery – and embarks together on a ride on a raft down River Mississippi. Satirically, Twain skewers the meaning of “right and wrong” in this antebellum-south writing, noting that returning a fugitive slave – instead of helping him escape – is the right thing to do. The author utilizes the most extreme backwoods South-Western dialect, the Missouri Black vernacular, and the standard “Pike-County” parlance and its four variants in the book. He contends that the shadings have not been done haphazardly or through guesswork. Instead, Mark Twain completed them painstakingly with the support and trustworthy guidance of his familiarity with the speech forms. The novel’s setting is the 1830s and 40s Missouri when the state still permitted slavery. Through the book, the author shows that slavery was accepted by all Whites regardless of their age or gender and that slaves were mistreated because Whites deemed them as lacking personhood.
Finn paints a colorful image of Jim, the slave but argues that slavery is right and acceptable. He notes that the morally acceptable thing to do when a person finds a fleeing slave is to surrender him to his owner, not to assist him to escape. Finn mentioned these words regarding his encounter with Jim, a former slave in the household where Finn used to live. As such, Finn only failed to report the runaway slave because he (Finn) was unattached to Jim’s former owner (Finn’s father). Finn also thought that reporting the runaway slave would have harmed his own attempt at running away from a drunken, abusive father (Thomas 12). Thus, he found a friend in Jim and embarked on an adventurous raft down the Mississippi River. Finn even painted a rich portrait of Jim as an unequaled character in American literature. Jim, according to Finn, was unpretentious, genuine, warmhearted, astute, rebellious, superstitious, and ignorant all at the same time.
In the book, Mark Twain essentially examines the issue of slavery from the perspective of a young White man who has lived in it. In this regard, the book presents an interesting point of view of slavery and helps in the further comprehension of the issue. Notably, the dominant beliefs about slavery at or around the time Mark Twain authored the book was held by adult White males (Menaka 3). They discussed the issue among themselves and in the country’s parliament, and this finally led to the abolition of the trade. However, it was unknown what children and women felt about slavery, although it was believed that their views were as varied or as similar as those held by White males. Finn’s perspective of slavery is that it is acceptable but that spending time with these individuals reveals a different and interesting aspect about them. Because of his strict upbringing, Finn lived by the standard of White male Americans and examined everything he did on the basis of the existing criteria by these individuals. Consequently, he accepted slavery as right, although there were inner convictions that the entire process is wrong and immoral.
Children can also protect those they deem to be of assistance to them in achieving their goals. Despite a strict upbringing, Finn swore not to tell anyone about Jim’s status. He knew that what he had decided to do was unpopular among his peers and race, but he was never going to reveal Jim’s identity. Finn tells himself that “People would call me a low down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t going to tell, and I ain’t going back there anyways” (Twain 67). Thus, when they meet strangers along their adventurous journey, Finn lies about Jim’s status. Surprisingly, it reached a point when the king turned and presented Jim to his captors as a fleeing slave, not knowing that he actually was one. The king did so to con the locals of some money, but Finn and Tom help Jim escape from his captors to try again for his freedom. Jim finally returns the favor to Tom when he forfeits his privilege to save Tom’s life. Finally, both Jim and Tom realize all the scheming and running around was unnecessary because Jim was a free person, after all.
Through slavery and a young White boy’s perspective, Mark Twain also highlights the dehumanization of Black in the antebellum south. Throughout the book, Blacks are mistreated and dehumanized by almost every other White character. Part of the reason for their mistreatment is that people view them as slaves and unfree individuals deserving nothing good. Viewing Blacks as property above all else is the genesis of this dehumanizing treatment, which is consistent with the actual events around the time Mark Twain wrote the book and the pre-civil war America. The dehumanization of Blacks is so ingrained in the White people throughout the book that initially, Finn struggled to address the “wicked” impulses of treating his companion as more than just property. It is also important to note that Jim decided to run away from his master after realizing that a trader would buy him and separate him from the family. Without a doubt, the decision to want to sell Jim, despite offering good service throughout the years, was malicious and inhumane as it was going to separate the man from his wife and children.
Another notable example of the “White characters’ disregard for their Black counterparts” is when Finn arrives at the Phelp’s household allegedly as Tom Sawyer. Speaking to auntie Sally, Finn invented blamed a mechanical problem for immobilizing the boat he was in and delaying his arrival, confessing that “It wasn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blew a cylinder-head” (Twain 336). Seemingly, it is beyond consideration for most of these White characters that Blacks are humans too. They neither consider what these Blacks do nor say and treat them less of humans, even in situations where they could get hurt. In many scenes throughout the book, Mark Twain undoubtedly satirizes how White people of his time dismissed the personhood of Black folks. The insensitivity in this mistreatment and dehumanization of Black people is pervasive to the extent that Jim considers himself “property” and was proud to be worth a fortune if anyone was to sell him. Jim also thinks that the only way to live a free life and not as property is to escape from his mistress and find money to buy his wife’s and children’s freedoms.
The only person that treated Jim with some respect as an equal is Finn. He shows Jim respect as a fellow human, but doing this does not come naturally to Finn, who was born and raised in a White, slave-owning family. Therefore, every time Finn treats Jim with some respect and humanity, he curses himself for acting immorally and doing the unfathomable. To him, the right and natural thing to do was to treat the slave as the property that he is. After all, this is how every other White person in the novel treats the Black person. Some White characters even treated Jim worse than a slave owner could do, and all because they had no regard for Black persons. For example, Tom does not show any concern for Jim’s needs and comfort when he devises a plan for him to escape from the cabin he is being held. Not only does Tom ask Jim to perform impossible and nonsensical acts, but he also makes Jim’s life difficult and painful. He fills Jim’s bed with spiders and snakes and does not care what the repercussions for Jim are.
Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a story about slavery and the dehumanization of Black people regaled from a young White male’s perspective. It illustrates societal ills around humanity practiced by members of the antebellum south. Although the author presents the book as an illustration of the escapades of the semi-literate Huckleberry Finn, it is driven by Jim’s attempt to attain safety and freedom for himself and his family. In the process, Jim endures mistreatment and dehumanization and finally accepts that running around and plotting was worthless because he was actually a free man.
Works Cited
Menaka, Giovani. “A Study on Racism and Slavery in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Asian Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, 2018, pp. 1-5.
Thomas, Brook. “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Reconstruction”. American Literary Realism, vol. 50, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1-24.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. London: Chatto and Windus Piccadilly, 1884.