Racism in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Most people are quick to judge others by just taking a quick look at them or hearing them talk. In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain portrays a young boy named Huck and a slave named Jim having adventures on the Mississippi River. They get into trouble, and are out of it as soon as they got in. As he gets to know Jim, Huck realizes that everyone is the same on the inside; no matter what their skin color is or what language they speak. At first, Huck is naive towards Jim and the similarities between each other. As the novel progresses, Huck gets to know Jim more and more, and he soon realizes that they are the same, even though Huck is white and Jim is black. In his novel, Twain demonstrates that people are very judgmental at first sight in order to tell readers that they need to get to know a person before judging them.

When it comes to judging a person's personality, people should be gradual in doing so. In other words, one should get to know someone well before making any judgmental decisions. At the beginning of the novel, Huck believes that Jim is a stupid, superstitious, and naive person. Tom and Huck play a trick on Jim because they want to see how he reacts. Tom puts his hat on a branch and wakes him up; and when he gets the chance, Jim tells every slave he sees that witches brought him all over the country. Huck shows this by saying "Afterward Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance..." (Twain, 5) implying that Jim will believe anything. Huck will eventually become used to seeing Jim, so he will be less and less moved to make comments like this about him.

Although "Huck" is halfway through writing his novel, he still does not quite see his similarities with Jim. Once the king and the duke come aboard, and they each tell their stories, and Huck believes they are both frauds. He does not say out loud this to get them mad, or even to Jim. Huck thinks that Jim would not be able to understand what he is saying. Huck is thinking to himself and decides that "I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him." (Twain, 113). Earlier in the in the novel, Huck had some problems explaining the King Solomon story to Jim because Jim heard one version of it, and he stuck to that version. Huck eventually finds that it is impossible to argue with Jim because he is so stuck up. "If he got a notion in his head once, there warn't no way pf getting it out again" (Twain, 71) is how Huck puts Jim's being stuck up. Because Huck does not choose to confide in Jim about the King and Duke, he still believes that Jim is different from him because Jim is still indifferent toward what other people have to say and the fact that he is pretty dumb.

However, as the novel progresses, Jim finally does something to make Huck realize they have no differences. Tom has just been shot after the "rescuing" of Jim. Jim is nursing Tom and says "No, sah-I doan' budge a step out'n dis place 'dout a doctor; not if it's forty year!" (Twain, 245). This is the time Huck finally realizes that Jim is "white" on the inside, though he has black skin. By seeing this, Huck is taking a huge step towards telling the reader that one should not be racist. It takes him 245 pages in writing to figure out that he has been racist the whole time.

After reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the reader comes to find that people used to be racist and some still are. Huck takes almost a whole book to find out the fact that everyone is the same on the inside, no matter their skin color, black or white. Throughout the novel, Mark Twain portrays many people being racist towards blacks, while the main character, Huckleberry Finn, ends up believing that everybody is the same. Huck goes from not seeing this at all, to making gradual changes, to finally, near the end, realizing all of this. In all, one should not be quick to judge others just because of their skin; they ought to get to know the person they are about to judge first.