Stereotypes+Within+Huck+Finn

Stereotypes in Huckleberry Finn Throughout the book Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain in 1885, stereotypes were formulated of blacks, high society, the uneducated, and also women. Twain used many literary devices, such as satire, to consummate these stereotypes.

The main character that Twain stereotyped in the book was a slave named Jim. Twain condemned Jim to the stereotype of the “minstrel tradition”. Minstrel shows began in the 1830s; they ridiculed black people, portraying them as “ignorant, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, joyous, and musical.” Throughout Huckleberry Finn Twain depicted blacks in this way, but he also used the character Jim to portray blacks as caring, brave, smart, and overall, equal to whites.

As their journey went on, Huck realized that Jim was just as capable of having “human” feelings as he was, one incident was when Huck “humbled [himself] to a nigger”, the nigger being Jim. Huck realized that he hurt Jim and he needed to apologize to make things right. At the time this book was written, black people were looked down upon, there was no need to apologize to them because they were the “lesser humans” and had no feelings at all. But Twain used the character Huck, who befriended the nigger Jim, to be the nonconformist who learned to care for Jim and learned that all humans are equal.

The most significant part of the book was when Jim offered his freedom in order to save Tom’s life; this showed Huck that Jim was truly “white on the inside.” When Huck stated this he was not being racist, he was simply referring to the time period and how whites were “high class”; Huck saw that Jim had as much heart as he did.

Whites, in the book, were thought to be more educated and civilized, but if you look at the characters, such as Pap, you realize that Twain does not agree. The king and the duke are also examples of this, they are two “rednecks” who pretended to be scholarly so they could con the naïve townspeople and steal money from them.

Also, Women were portrayed as weak, while men were portrayed as gregarious. An example would be when Tom and Huck were collecting snakes to set free in Aunt Sally’s house and Aunt Sally “would just lay that work down, and light out”, the reason they were portrayed as more fragile was because women, in the book, were merely minor characters while the men were the major characters.

The stereotypes that Mark Twain created throughout Huckleberry Finn demonstrate the way we separate ourselves in society, some high class while others are low class. Those who are intelligent are better than those you are less educated, those who have a job are better than those who don’t have a job; we refuse to see each other as equal because of the norms we have built in our society. Twain shows the reader that while certain stereotypes have been changed, such as racism, there are still strong prejudices living among us.

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