Huck Finn Essay

Sivilization

Imagine growing up to an education that taught that black people were inferior, unintelligent, repulsive, and were to be denigrated by all. Mob rule was said to be the means of settling disputes. Family rivalries were carried on through each generation with no apparent reason. The immorality that arises should be discernible, but those living in the mid-1800s South found these principles a part of life. On the other hand, Huckleberry Finn was an abnormality; he did not conform to either the civilized or uncivilized. Huck’s journey down the river portrayed his internal conflict of choosing between society’s principles and his own. The river was his means of freedom from society’s influence, providing a perspicacious perspective of the wrongs in society. The mid-1800s was an era of immorality, ignorance, and sin by those who followed societal standards, resulting in the dehumanization of blacks.

On the hierarchical structure of Southern society, blacks were placed at the lowest level. Whites, civilized or uncivilized, treated blacks with impertinence. The wealthy, educated white population owned slaves to work their plantations, while rednecks were racist against accomplished free blacks. When Pap hears that a black man was going to vote in the elections, his racist beliefs boil over: “when they told me there was a State in this country where they’d let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I’ll never vote agin. […] I says to the people, why ain’t this nigger put up at auction and sold?” (Twain, 37). The influence society has over Pap is evident through the diatribe against the black man. Pap even expects the man to be a slave. Society’s class structures may have been rigid, yet Jim’s journey with Huck gave an opportunity for blacks to be humanized.

Jim was no regular black man in Southern society. Upon hearing Miss Watson’s desire to sell Jim down to New Orleans, he runs away because he does not want to be separated from his family. Many whites at the time thought that blacks felt no sentiments toward anybody, yet Jim personifies all blacks by showing love for his family. This love is reiterated when he cries to Huck about hitting his deaf daughter for not listening to him:

“I fetch’ her a slap side de head dat sont her a-sprawlin’. […] I says pow! jis’ as loud as I could yell. She never budge! Oh, Huck, I bust out a-cryin’ en grab her up in my arms, en say, ‘Oh, de po’ little thing! de Lord God Almighty fo-give po’ ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to forgive hisself as long’s he live!” (168).

Jim opened up and showed shame for hitting his daughter. Though a sad event, the black community was further humanized with the ability to have feelings. Lastly, Jim continued to express his opinion when Huck tricks him into believing he was only dreaming about Huck lost in the fog. When Jim realizes Huck lied to him, Jim feels betrayed:

“my heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’ k’yer no mo’ what become er me en de raf’. En when I wake up en fine you back agin’, all safe en soun’, de tears come en I could a got down on my knees en kiss’ yo’ foot I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinking ‘bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is trash; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en makes ‘em ashamed” (98).

This was yet another event in which black people are humanized by Jim’s show of emotions, but more importantly, this was the first time a black man retaliated against a white man. Jim showed that blacks actually have their own opinions and feelings, like any other human being. Jim does not feel constrained by the societal structure of the South and is a symbol of the humanization of all blacks. Huck is able to see Jim as another human being and decided to help Jim, without returning him to Miss Watson: “He was a mighty good nigger, Jim was” (167). The doctor also explained that “[Jim] ain’t no bad nigger” (300) for helping him with Tom’s wounds. If anyone were to be denigrated, it should have been those who conformed to society’s standards.

When Boggs took his monthly run through town intoxicated, Colonel Sherburn murdered Boggs for his disruption. The city then rallied together to lynch Sherburn for his actions. Before going any further, the propensity to act with violence is made clear, an ever-present mannerism of Southern standards. This mob rule was shot down by Sherburn’s panegyric on the people’s lack of courage: “The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is- a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass” (159). Throughout the South, families and groups fought together when disputing, rallying themselves together with pride and courage, but forgetting the logic behind the decision to fight. The Grangerfords and Shepherdsons fought for ages, yet no one truly knew the reason behind their dispute or tried to make amends.

When Huck found a home at the Grangerfords, he was enveloped by a guerrilla war between two families that had no idea why they were fighting. When Huck confronted Buck and asked if the Shepherdsons ever did anything wrong against him, Buck did not know why the families started feuding: “Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago” (120). Fighting for something without a cause is meaningless and amounts to nothing. If this feud and all the death it created were acceptable to Southern society, how was it that blacks were forced into slavery? The logic here is nonsensical.

Indian civil rights activist B.R. Ambedkar said, “Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.” Living above the influence of society, Huckleberry Finn and Jim were able to see the South with its sin and immorality. As both characters progressed throughout the novel, both were able to gain a sense of self-worth, rather than conforming to the standards of a corrupt society. Jim humanized himself and all slaves as persons with feelings, minds, and opinions. Huck learned to think of others before himself and to direct his moral compass solely. Though Huck and Jim could not change much of the present problems, the Civil War did come soon enough to help Southern society realize their wrongdoing. Huck and Jim did leave us with a moral: “first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye” (Matthew 7:5). We have to be able to identify ourselves first in order to know what we can contribute and change in our society to make the world a better place.

Sometimes being “sivilize[d]” (Twain, 307) is not the best option.