LITERARY ANALYSIS - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .
Mark Twain, the author of the one of the greatest novels in American literature, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, portrays his opinion of prejudice of African Americans during the 19th Century in the United States by criticizing the white people who have "racism". In Twain's novel, prejudice, meaning irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race or religion (American Heritage Dictionary) is satirically criticized by both minor and major characters. Contrasts to Huck, Jim shows humanity of the "niggers". Jim does not only thrill the readers with the dangers of the life living as a runaway slave, but represent the Negroes who were in fact, not any inferior to the Whites. The readers feel sympathy on Jim for being such a nice person with warm heart, having extra adventures because of his color of skin. Huck, the main character of the novel, has internal conflicts on whether helping Jim to get his freedom or not and his shifting attitude towards the slavery is major flow of how Twain expressed his ideas over the prejudice and hypocrisy. By breaking Huck's prejudice over African Americans during his journey with Jim, Twain is trying to reflect the foolishness of prejudice which uncountable number of white people had during the time period. .
Mark Twain creates various white characters in order to demonstrate the culpability of racism. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the whites are in different classes of the society. Pap, belonged an extreme low class of the white society, was described as a cruel, ignorant alcoholic, who beats his own son to extort money and abuse the money to drink alcohol. Twain exactly manifests how a white could be corrupted, and new superior to "niggers". Despite his ignorance and irresponsible behaviours, Pap believes himself that he is superior to "niggers" and says, "there was a free nigger there from Ohio They said he was a p"fessor in college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything.
