Essay Chat
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Essay Question 1 - satire
The book can be said to be a satire on the issue of slavery.
Mark Twain uses Jim, a main character and 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 previous life, as a slave for Miss Watson, and joins Huck Finn. He decides that once he gets to the north, he will works towards obtaining freedom and buy back his own family. All along their journey downriver, Jim cares for and protects Huck, not as a servant, but as a friend. Thus, Twain's encourages the reader to feel sympathy and empathy for Jim and outrage at the society that has enslaved him and threatened his life.
Although Twain attacks slavery through Jim, he never directly addresses the issue. Huck and Jim never debate slavery, and all the other slaves in the novel are very minor characters. Only in the final section of the novel does Twain develop the central conflict concerning slavery of whether Huck should free Jim and be condemned to hell or not? This decision is life-altering for Huck, as it forces him to reject everything "civilization" has taught him. Huck chooses to free Jim, based on his personal experiences rather than social norms, thus choosing the morality of the “natural life” over that of civilization.
posted by koager @ 4:12 PM
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