Racism, Stereotypes and Social Heirarchy in Huck Finn
Matt Carlton
Thesis Statement & Outline
Thesis Statement: Mark Twain highlights racism, stereotypes and social hierarchy throughout Huck Finn, creating a very controversial story for his readers. His views and use of language can sometimes be misunderstood but they greatly contribute to the theme that he is trying to bring forth.
B. Thesis Statement
Outline
B. Twain’s stereotypical view of church and the criticism of it.
Outline
Outline
Outline
A. Relating racism and stereotypes to show the common features
in the characters
Works Cited
Briley, Ron. "Teaching Huckleberry Finn in Historical Context." Teaching Huckleberry Finn in Historical Context. History News Network, 24 Jan. 2011. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
Gregory, Leslie. "Finding Jim Behind the Mask: The Revelation of African American Humanity in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Finding Jim Behind the Mask: The Revelation of African American Humanity in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Amperstand, 13 Jan. 1998. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
Henry, Peaches. The Struggle for Tolerance: Race and Censorship in Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn Controversy. Western Michigan University, July 2002. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
Works Cited Continued
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Charles L. Webster, 1885. Huckleberry Finn. Project Gutenberg, 20 Aug. 2006. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
Webb, Allen. Racism and Huckleberry Finn: Censorship, Dialogue, and Change. Racism in Huckleberry Finn. Western Michigan University, July 2002. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.
Racism The Adventures of Huck Finn
II B Twain
“It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a n*****; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way.” said Huck in reference to apologizing to Jim about playing tricks on him.
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Introduction & Racism The Adventures of Huck Finn
IA & IIB Twain
“It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that n***** vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote again” Pap talking about his election day problems when he found out blacks could vote.
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Racism The Adventures of Huck Finn
IIB Twain
“I liked the n***** for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a n***** like that is worth a thousand dollars—and kind treatment, too.” This was said by a doctor who tended to Tom, this shows how blacks were recognized as good people but still possessions.
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Racism & Stereotypes The Adventures of Huck Finn
IIA & IIIA Twain
"Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n' for joy, en I'll say, it's all on accounts o' Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it hadn' ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck; you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had; en you's de only fren' ole Jim's got now." said by Jim and shows his stereotypical lack of intelligence through his speech.
Racism The Struggle for Tolerance
IA Henry
“Desegregation and the civil rights movement deposited Huck in the midst of American literature classes which were no longer composed of white children only, but now were dotted with black youngsters as well. In the faces of these children of the revolution, Huck met the group that was to become his most persistent and formidable foe.”
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Racism The Struggle for Tolerance
IA Henry
Since America was coming through a time when they were trying to recover from the social scars that came from segregation this book didn’t sit well with many.
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Racism & Stereotypes The Struggle for Tolerance
IA Henry
“Twain's minstrellike portrayal of the escaped slave Jim and of black characters in general, and the negative traits assigned to blacks.”
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Conclusion Censorship, Dialogue, and Change
V A Webb
By teaching this material or reading the book Huckleberry Finn you can then have a diverse understanding in the way society looked at blacks in that time period.
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Conclusion Censorship, Dialogue, and Change
V A Webb
“Entering into a dialogue with those that have objections to Huckleberry Finn can help us think the dynamics of race in literature courses and about the way literature depicts, interrogates, and affirms our national culture and history.” - Webb
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Introduction Censorship, Dialogue, and Change
IA Webb
“African American student and parent concerns during the teaching of Huckleberry Finn led to a decision to immediately remove the text from the classroom in the district’s two high schools. Required to read a brief statement to their students stating that the book had been withdrawn, teachers were prohibited from further discussion of Huckleberry Finn or reasons for its removal until more sensitive approaches were found.”
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Conclusion Censorship, Dialogue, and Change
V B Webb
“The novel remains the only one of the most taught works in high school to treat slavery, to represent a black dialect, and to have a significant role for an African American character.”
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Racism The Adventures of Huck Finn
IIA Twain
“Jim had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything.”
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Racism & Stereotypes The Adventures of Huck Finn
IIA & IIIA Twain
“Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it.”
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Stereotypes The Adventures of Huck Finn
III B Twain
“Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same.”
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Racism Censorship, Dialogue, and Change
IIA & IIIA Webb
The thought that Twain’s Huckleberry Finn raises more of an awareness for racism and stereotypes rather than cause more issues.
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Stereotypes Censorship, Dialogue, and Change
III A Webb
“Twain fitted Jim into the outlines of the minstrel tradition, and it is from behind this stereotype mask that we see Jim’s dignity and human capacity”
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Social Classes Teaching Huck Finn Historically
IV B Briley
“For Huck to accept Jim as a man, he must confront and reject the values of his society. While Pap and the Widow Watson represent different social classes, they agree that slaves are property, not people.”
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Stereotypes Teaching Huck Finn Historically
III A Briley
The two stereotypes that the men of this time were dirty, old drunks who came home to a house and did nothing and also the common abuse of drunken people. The other stereotype being the fine Christian mother who stays at home and keeps the house in order all day long, both southern stereotypes.
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Social Hierarchy The Adventures of Huck Finn
IV A Twain
“He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long,�mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl�a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes�just rags, that was all.”
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Social Hierarchy Teaching Huck Finn Historically
IV B Briley
Jim could not progress as a character because he was constantly being repressed by the whole slave idea find out in the end he wasn’t a slave after all.
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Stereotypes Jim Behind the Mask
III B Gregory
Twain's stereotypical depiction of Jim originates from traditions of his time.
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Racism Jim Behind the Mask
II A Gregory
Instead of improving the status of blacks and establishing in practice those rights to which they were constitutionally entitled, the programs only succeeded in proliferating the alienation of an already demoralized white South and escalating racial tensions.
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Conclusion Jim Behind the Mask
V B Gregory
“Within the context of this historical period, Twain penned Jim, stereotyping him in the “minstrel tradition,” with Negro slave dialect and a mind imbued with superstition” -Ellison
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Social Hierarchy Jim Behind the Mask
IV B Gregory
“Although Twain may have used a negative stereotype in his creation of Jim, throughout the novel he provides his audience with a clear view of Jim’s humanity behind the minstrel mask.”
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Racism Jim Behind the Mask
II A Gregory
“Confused and intimidated by Huck’s foolery, Jim acquiesces to the lie and thus his own sense of inferiority. Jim reverts to the only means he knows to help him rationalize his bewilderment--superstition.” - in reference to the time when Huck tricked Jim into thinking he had dreamt the whole thing.
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Stereotypes Jim Behind the Mask
IV A Gregory
The idea that Jim actually does care about his family, and how surprised Huck is by that since he has always thought blacks do not have feelings.
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Conclusion Jim Behind the Mask
V B Gregory
Twain’s juxtaposition of Jim the minstrel and Jim the human being is reflective of the ambiguity of black humanity in the late 1800s.
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Introduction The Struggle for Tolerance
I A Henry
The fact that Huck Finn is ninth on the most challenged books list should serve as testimony that the book's "racial problem" is one of more consequence than the ancillary position to which scholars have relegated it.
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Introduction/Racism The Struggle for Tolerance
IA & IIB Henry
Some who have followed Huck Finn's racial problems express dismay that some blacks misunderstand the ironic function Twain assigned by the word "n*****"
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Stereotypes The Adventures of Huck Finn
III A Twain
...though there warn't really anything the matter with them...
(Example of Huck’s southern stereotypical dialogue)
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