The novel " Huckleberry Finn" as an 'anti slavery' narrative by Mark Twain

 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.

It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, Anti-slavery is one of the central aspects of Mark Twain’s iconic novel, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Twain’s thoughts and beliefs regarding slavery channeled through the book’s main characters were quite revolutionary and ahead of their time. 

As one of the main themes of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain made his feelings of disgust about slavery clearly understood. Twain believed that slavery and religion were tied together in ways that made the abolition of slavery a difficult task. 

Mark Twain grew up in Missouri, which was a slave state during his childhood. He would later incorporate his formative experiences of the institution of slavery into his writings. Though Huck Finn is the main character in the novel, Jim also plays an important role in depicting the harsh reality of slavery. 

In the novel the central figure, Huckleberry Finn, is a low born child. He is almost an orphan. His father Pap is a drunkard. He beats him and takes money from him. With the help of Tom Sawyer, he forms a gang of children for ransoming people. 

Huck is a hater of all the conventions that educate and civilize a person. Hence, all the effort of aunt Douglas proves futile and he accompanies the run-away slave, Jim. Both undergo many adventures! and misadventures on river and in the woods.

Mark Twain, a stalwart abolitionist and advocate for emancipation, seems to be critiquing the racial segregation and oppression of his day by exploring the theme of slavery in Huckleberry Finn. 

Jim and Huck Finn are looking for their freedom on a raft, sailing down the Mississippi River. That’s an adventure right there. But then all kinds of things happen to them while they are on the raft, including a steamboat running into them and separating them.

 They meet up with criminals and become wrapped up in their schemes – more adventure. Money and greed are problems for Huck Finn and Jim throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

In the novel, we are introduced to characters who own slaves and those who make money because of the institution of slavery. We meet Miss Watson, the Grangerford family, and the Phelps family who own slaves, and we also meet people like the Duke and the King who profit from the institution of slavery. There is a market for runaway slaves, and money to be made if you capture one.

Through the duration of the 19th-century The White race held dominance over the black race and therefore used the black race as slaves. 

They were considered as property rather than a human.  Slavery was endorsed by the majority if not the entirety of the southern united states. 

Twain uses Jim, a main character and as a slave, to demonstrate the humanity of slaves. Jim expresses the complicated human emotions and struggles with the path of his life. To prevent being sold and forced to separate from his family, Jim runs away from his owner, Miss Watson, and works towards obtaining freedom so he can buy his family's freedom. 

Right from the beginning of the novel, Jim strikes the reader as a naive and gullible person. He believes in superstitions and is easy to talk into basically anything. 

At first, this character design may come off as stereotypical for the era when Twain was creating his masterpieces. Jim is obviously uneducated and conditioned by society into believing everything he is told.

Twain explores freedom right along with slavery in this novel. Freedom is important to both Jim and Huck Finn. It’s obvious that freedom would be important to Jim since he has spent his life as a slave, and he is running away from his master. 

Jim  runs away after he overheard Miss Watson planning to sell him "down the river" to presumably more brutal owners. Jim plans to make his way to the town of Cairo in Illinois, a free state, so that he can later buy the rest of his enslaved family's freedom. 

At first, Huck is conflicted about the sin and crime of supporting a runaway slave, but as the two talk in-depth and bond over their mutually held superstitions, Huck emotionally connects with Jim, who increasingly becomes Huck's close friend and guardian.

Throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn we see many aspects of mans inhumanity to man. Slavery is a broad topic that is recurring throughout the novel. While we see many examples of slavery dealing with man’s inhumanity to man in the novel, we are also given a back story to what it was like in this time to be a slave as seen through Jim. 

“It warn’t the grounding- that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder head. Good gracious! Anybody hurt? No’m. Killed a slave”

This quote from the text  shows that during this time, there wasn’t much care for a slave, slaves were like animals and were treated as such.

Twain demonstrated his compassion for the human condition by making Jim’s character multifaceted: he is uneducated but street-smart, and he is naive but fiercely loyal and caring.

Twain develops in relation to anti-slavery are religion and pretense. At some point, Huck realizes that the religious sentiment is against him freeing Jim, to which he responds with - 

“All right, then, I’ll go to hell .” This proves the superficial nature of religion over real people’s life struggles.

Huck’s genuine efforts to free Jim are contrasted with Tom Sawyer’s playfulness. To Tom, Jim’s route to escape is nothing more than a fun adventure.

 Mark Twain uses these references to give the reader a better understanding of how cruelty is shown through society and their beliefs concerning greed, slavery, and ideas of fun.