Throughout the novel, racism against blacks is prominent. White society saw blacks as property, rather than people, and the cruel acts the blacks endured weren't considered immoral. ... For example, he played malicious tricks on Jim without regard to how he would feel about it. ... Huck's journey allows readers to experience the racism through a young boy's eyes, and make the transformation to accepting all people as equals. ... That is what is so American about Huckleberry Finn. ...

• Word Count: 759
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Although he reviles against the black professor, he is indeed embarrassing himself because he knows that the black professor has better ability to do things that he cannot do. ... Jim, however got very angry at Huck that Huck tried to lie him about such a serious thing. ... Since Pap was not a caring father to Huck at all, Huck sees Jim as a person who actually cares about his family more than Pap. ... Grown up as a typical white boy, Huck never doubts the fact that Blacks should be slaves, serving for whites. ... Twain uses Huck as a tool to show the readers how a young white boy could not sh...

• Word Count: 1186
• Approx Pages: 5

Mark Twain is able to define the changes in race by showing a boy who refuses to act as his white southerners and help free a black to slavery. Twain uses a small boy to show what the white human race is like without the corruption of society and slavery. ... He does fight with his conscious about these issues but in the end he is separating himself and defining himself by showing how he is not like the white southern race. ... There are dozens of blacks fighting against each other at the gathering. ... It is a good example of using to money on the rug to stereotype the black race. ...

• Word Count: 1155
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

The young boy Huckleberry Finn is quite a character. He's what people would call a "real boy." ... The large burly black slave that accompanies Huck on many of his adventures was his supposed murderer. ... When in reality he only ran away upon finding out about Huck's departure. The enormous black man was respected greatly by slaves all over the area and further. ...

• Word Count: 624
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

Another good example of verbal irony is when Levi Bell the lawyer says "Set down, my boy; I wouldn't strain myself if I was you. ... Another example of verbal irony that Twain uses in chapter 20 is when the duke and the king are interrogating Huck about their raft and Jim. ... It's quite interesting that Twain uses the fact that when someone tells you not to do something or warns you about something, it makes you even more curious. ... An example of situational irony is when Twain attacks the prejudices that society had against blacks, showing how ironical it was to blame a black man...

• Word Count: 939
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Words Hurts What would you do if you where a little boy who was taught about racism when you where a child and you had to pick the right thing to do or the wrong thing? ... Twain was just writing what was said and it would sound strange if he used black man or black person instead of nigger. ... This is a little boy that had to choose slavery or a friend. Huck decides to save black mans life over his own. Now what does that tell you about what Twain wrote? ...

• Word Count: 1050
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

The central relationship of the story is that of a runaway slave, Jim, and a young and adventurous boy, Huck. ... In these pages one hears almost exclusively about Jim's various superstitions. ... This is significant because Jim, a black slave, is teaching Huck, a white boy, an important moral lesson. ... Jim takes Huck's night watch so that the boy can sleep. ... In actuality, Jim, a black man, cares much more for "his people" than Pap, a white man, had ever cared for Huck. ...

• Word Count: 1224
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

They live in an ethically confused society in which 'good' whites like Sally Phelps and Miss Watson show no concern for the treatment of the black society. ... From the beginning, Twain portrays Huck as a teenage boy who belongs to the lowest level of the white community. ... The boy is dirty and often homeless. ... This statement means that blacks are unappreciative and would take advantage of anything done for them. ... He learns about life in real world situations, developing his identity and a good conscience. ...

• Word Count: 1003
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Through Huck (the protagonist) and Jim, Twain unveils the human connection between a white boy and a black man and shows that their friendship is stronger than the obstacles put in front of them by the culture they live in. What is unique about this book is that Twain's own boyhood experience was when slavery was an accepted practice in the South. ... As Huck is being told about this, his own sentences become questions and quicker. Huck is worrying about his friend, and that is why the sentences speed up. ... Huckleberry Finn is a tale of a boy who fights his society for someone else....

• Word Count: 887
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Everything that Huck says reflects the racism and black stereotypes typical of the era. ... Huckleberry Finn still stands as a powerful representation of experience through the brand new eyes of an innocent boy. ... If the author wished-for the story to be racist, he would not write about the way Huck felt towards Jim. ... Twains novel Huckleberry Finn should be portrayed as a novel that represents a young boy that grew up in that era and not one that represents racial bigotry. The ridicule of the slave race in the end permitted by Huck is more about pleasing the awes of Huck toward Tom. ...

• Word Count: 918
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The problem at this juncture of the novel is that Huck does not reciprocate Jim's feelings about him. ... Huck would say that this isn't natural because he didn't know that black people had feeling just the same as whites did. He thought they didn't care about anything and weren't as civil as white people. He realizes blacks are the same as whites. 6. ... The perception we have of Huck Finn at the beginning of the novel is that of a poor, uneducated boy. ...

• Word Count: 613
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

This is the same system that puts a white man's rights to his "property- "his slaves "over the welfare and freedom of a black man. ... Huck's opposition to civilization is based on some mature observations about the worth of society. ... Huck and Jim are both outsiders, Huck because he is a boy with a shiftless father and deceased mother, Jim because he is a black slave. ... While society differentiates between an abused runaway slave and an abused runaway boy, Huck does not. ... Huck begins to care too much about Jim to deny his equality. ...

• Word Count: 1201
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Our first picture of Huck at the beginning of the novel was a young innocent boy who doesn't like to work and is also superstitious. ... When Tom tells Huck about the genies and the Arabs etc, Huck knows when Tom is lying when he has seen it hasn't happened. ... Huck felt really bad about it because he didn't mean to and swore he wouldn't do something like that again. ... Huck's socially learned response tells him that this is wrong, that life was white over black and that a runaway Negro that Huck could hand in anytime is planning to steal other Negroes. ... Huck was ...

• Word Count: 1013
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Although she is a child who has a black housekeeper, she doesn't really know of the prejudice that still lingers against them. ... Even though Scout had her doubts about Tom Robinson's charges being dropped at all, she was still crushed by the fact that the entire jury would vote against him. ... Huck is forced to face the same problem as Scout; the way you are seen in the eyes of society for helping and enjoying the company of blacks. ... Huck's ability to choose over something he has thought about deliberately and not act only on impulse and instinct shows how his maturity has...

• Word Count: 809
• Approx Pages: 3

Huck and Jim initially don't find themselves best of friends, Huck initially finds himself struggling with the acceptance, commitment, and loyalty because he is white and, Jim is a black runaway slave, who finds himself doing as this little twelve year old white boy tells him. ... Jim finds Himself as a mentor for Huck, he fears for Huck's safety, cares about what Huck thinks but mostly Jim sees Huck as a necessity if he is to get to the north and gain his freedom. A true friend can really be defined as a person who cares about another, someone who is willing to make a sacrifice ...

• Word Count: 788
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Through Huck Finn's many adventures, Twain told what it might have been like for a thirteen year old boy, who came from the lowest levels of white society, trying to discover just how and why society worked the way it did. ... This is where Twain brought Jim in the mix, which ignited Huck to start believing different and changed the way his heart felt about many things. ... This incident alone shows just how much different Huck thought from society and when he realized blacks, like whites, have feelings, he felt that his friendship with Jim was more important that being caught with a "r...

• Word Count: 883
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Nevertheless, Huck is still a boy, and is influenced by others, particularly by his imaginative friend, Tom and Jim. ... Because Jim is a black man and a runaway slave, he is at the pity of almost all the other characters in the novel and is often forced into ridiculous and humiliating situations. ... He does not care about Huck and only wants his money. ... The older man, who appears to be about seventy, claims to be the "dauphin," the son of King Louis XVI and heir to the French throne. The younger man, who is about thirty, claims to be the usurped Duke of Bridgewater. ...

• Word Count: 1157
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Tom is a middle-class boy who received religious teaching and was indoctrinated with social values. ... When Huck left his community, his morals changed when he does not think about Tom's beliefs. ... Huck's perception of the mass was, "It was pretty ornery preaching- all about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good sermon, and they talked it over going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith, and good works" (129). ... The society's belief that the black people should be enslaved because they are inferior subspecies o...

• Word Count: 1203
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School