Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn - Racist or Not?

The book Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn is not a racist book. The main arguments against it are the characters' personalities and the dialect they used. This novel is criticized by Twain critics and on the top ten ban list for school reading material. If people just concentrated on the main plot of the story, instead of the fine details that makes the novel realistic, they would agree that the accusation of this novel being racist is ridiculous.

Huck Finn was abused by his father all throughout his childhood. He lived in constant fear of his surroundings and didn't lead an exactly normal life. When he finally decides to get out of his predicament and stages his own death, he meets up with Jim on Jackson's island. As Jim's quest for freedom and a better life continues he and Huck become closer. Huck's conscience is leading him to believe different things throughout the novel, like whether him helping Jim to freedom is the right thing to do. But, in the end Huck realizes he could never betray his friend, Jim, who has risked his life for Huck and who has become the closest friend Huck ever had and will ever have.

The language is the major argument against this novel. The use of language is not Mark Twain's view point or the way he speaks, but is the way people actually talked back then in the South. Like when Huck Finn says, "Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim." He is just referring to Jim that way because that's how he was raised and that is how everyone spoke back then. Even when Huck thought of Jim as a friend he still used the word "nigger," but he didn't use it in a harmful way, as of to insult anyone, but just as an every day reference to black people that wasn't exactly uncommon.

Jim is no way portrayed as a bad character in this novel. Huck even believes Jim is a good person. You can see this when Huck states, "I thought he had a good heart in him and was a good man the first time I seen him." Huck manages to look through Jim's race and his own racist background and become his friend and helps lead him to freedom. Huck looks at the good qualities of Jim and not his skin color. Even if this novel did display Mark Twain's viewpoint, I believe it wouldn't be a racist one.

Huck shows friendship towards Jim as well. The novel shows that Huck has feelings for Jim when Huck says, "It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and tumble myself to a nigger-but I done it and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if I'd'a' knowed it would make him feel that way."

The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn is in no way a racist novel. Jim is displayed as a very strong character and his skin color is of no affect in this novel. The main plot of the novel has nothing to do with racism at all. It is just a young boy's quest to find the life he wants to live and his growing friendship with a runaway slave. Huck looks up to Jim throughout the novel and they constantly help each other out. Back then, it would have been very uncommon for a young white boy to develop a friendship with a slave. Mark Twain looks past this and shows Jim as a human being and as Huck's best friend.