Essay on Mark Twain And Slavery

Mark Twain and SlaveryMark Twain, a famous American writer wrote many books highly acclaimed throughout the world. For his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the literary establishment recognized him as one of the greatest writers America would ever produce. This novel is about a teenage boy by the name of Huck Finn. He is living with Miss Watson and Widow Douglas who have adopted him. He decides that civil life is not for him and that he is going to run away. At the beginning of his adventure he runs into Miss Watson’s run away slave Jim. Instead of turning Jim in, Huck goes against society and makes a decision to help Jim break free from slavery. As they travel together, Huck learns more and more about Jim and starts to understand that the common stereotype of black people is wrong. Huck sees there is no different then anyone else. He starts to see that Jim is a loving caring person just like anyone else. My argument is that Mark Twain portrayed Jim in this way because that is how he really felt about slavery. He felt that African Americans are our equals and that the act of slavery should not be allowed.Raised in the slave state of Missouri, Mark Twain grew up with slaves. His father owned slaves and his uncle actually owned twenty slaves. He saw the way slaves were treated on the everyday bases especially when he went to his uncle’s farm for the summer. At a young age Mark Twain witnessed a slave being killed just because he did one thing wrong (Lombardi 1). These things in his childhood lead me to believe that Mark Twain felt bad for African Americans and feels that they should be free.I have chosen to use the literary theory structuralism. “In literary theory structuralism is an approach to a…

…his is how American should start to realize that African Americans are our equals. He depicts many of the white people in this story as thieves, murders, or all around bad people. He never once says anything bad about Jim even though he would normally be stereotyped as the person that would do all these things merely by the color of his skin. Mark Twain portrays his feelings through this story. Race is the underlining theme in this story. If you read the story closely you can see all the different things that point this out. Mark Twain felt that African Americans are our equal and through this story he shows this very well.