Today in class, Mr. Delacruz asked
us to come up with an episode from The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that
related a meaning Mark Twain was trying to convey throughout the book. Because
Natalie and I are—admittedly—not very far in the book, we went with a few
adventures in the beginning that we felt conveyed one of the themes about
society Twain was trying to communicate to the reader: when we, as humans,
believe we are superior to others based on arbitrary measures such as race,
wealth, eye color, sexuality, etc., we are actually the inferior ones because
we are unable to grasp the fact humans are all the same no matter our
differences.
This message can be symbolized by
two instances in the very beginnings of The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The first episode we took a look at was at
the end of chapter four when Huck gives Jim a fake quarter in hopes that the ox
hairball would divulge Huck information about his pap. The hairball ‘says’ that
Huck’s pap has two angels, a white one, which is good, and a black one, which
is evil. We felt this symbolized the thoughts of the southerners at that time:
blacks were inferior to whites. White people believed blacks were an
abomination to the Earth, and whites were the best creatures to have graced
this planet. By putting themselves on a pedestal above blacks, white people
were unable to see that, in reality, they were the ones that were evil instead
of the black slaves.
Our views are supported in the last
few pages of chapter six when pap begins to drunkenly rant about how terrible
the government is for letting a black man in Ohio vote. Pap couldn’t believe
something like this could ever happen.
In protest, pap was going to abstain from voting for a country that
would allow such a thing. This strengthens the theme we came up with because
pap cannot believe a black person has the right to vote somewhere in America.
Chattel. A slave can vote! Pap in unable to consider this in his feeble—and
mainly intoxicated—mind. It is preposterous! By believing he is better than the
voting nigger—it is extremely odd using this word—pap is in fact degrading
himself as a human being.
This theme is extremely relevant in
today’s world, and especially in Dewitt. Many of my friends, who will rename
unnamed, are very bigoted and are quick to stereotype. Ignorance, societal
grooming, and incompetence to understand morals are the biggest culprits. My
friends inherit their beliefs from their parents, which is sad because people
should think for themselves and not base their own thoughts off of what other
morons tell them to believe. I can remember one instance when someone made a
joke about someone with a disability. Everyone around began to laugh and
further the original joke. I was the only one that didn’t laugh, and in fact, I
yelled at this person for being so ignorant. What do they gain by putting
others down? How are they much better? I was disgusted. They had such a closed
mind, and it was apparent in this situation. By putting this disabled person
down, my friend was degrading their own character as a human being. The irony!
Although race issues have progressed tremendously since the time of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
humans still have a tendency to believe they are better than others for idiotic
reasons, which makes them inferior as a result.
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