Ellis Orozco
Huck Finn Reflection

Some authors write stories for the popularity and perks that come along with a successful novel. Then there are those authors who write stories to convey their opinions about certain events in the world through their characters and plot lines. In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a reader may wonder about author Mark Twain’s opinions of current events of his time. In this essay the question of whether Twain is speaking his mind through his characters will be answered.
Jim, a slave, and Huck Finn share a human-to-human relationship. Huck and Jim’s relationship begins when Huck fakes his death and Jim escapes from Ms. Watson. They develop a personal relationship due to all the time they spend together on the raft. When Huck and Jim are alone on the raft, this intimate human-to-human relationship develops. On the other hand, when they interact in public situations their relationship changes to one of a human to property. Huck reestablishes an owner/slave relationship when he and Jim are in public situations to reflect society’s expectations. He struggles with the way he was brought up and the way society dictates how he should act and feel, and his close relationship and bond with Jim. For example, blacks are viewed as property and anyone who treats them otherwise is viewed disgracefully or in some cases hated by other citizens. So, when Huck goes out into towns or is faced with other people he has to put on this show and make everyone believe that he views blacks as property and nothing else.
Throughout their adventures, Jim and Huck act as slave and owner, and as friends. One perfect example of their slave-owner relationship would be when Jim gets caught while Huck went into town to gather some goods. Huck meets up with a kid and asks if he had seen Jim. When the kid says yes he also asks why he wants to know. Huck is forced to make up a story. He says Jim is a cruel and vial person who tied him up, and told Huck if he said a word he’d cut out his liver. This brings up the question of whether Huck truly feels that Jim is a bad person or if this is Twain’s way of expressing the way he truly feels about blacks. Perhaps by writing that Huck develops this elaborate story to cover up the fact that Huck and Jim are friends, Twain is illustrating how ignorant people were back then. Also, Twain describes how hard it was balancing the rules of society for how you interact with blacks and maintaining a close friendship with Jim, who was a black slave. Then there is the case of when Huck says maybe it’s better for Jim to be a slave. Huck tries to justify saying this by pointing out that Jim gets to be with his family. He says that Jim gets to have a place to live, work and eat. When Twain says, through Huck, that it may be better that Jim is Ms. Watson’s slave, he is saying that although life is bad being a slave, Jim is better there because of negative public perceptions of the worthiness and value of blacks as free people. The general public consensus is that black slaves are not entitled to be free and not able to become citizens.
When Huck is getting ready to turn Jim in, he has second thoughts and thinks about all the good times he and Jim had together. He decides not to turn him. Yet, Huck still refers to Jim as his property and something that belongs to him like a toy. This seems kind of strange referring to your friend as property; it makes me believe that Twain was trying to express his opinions about blacks through this writing. He was trying to say that even though Huck and Jim are “friends” so to speak, the type of world that Huck has been brought up in forces him to act that way to avoid being shunned or looked down upon by the outside world.
Due to Twain’s unique way of writing this story, he was able to express how bad slavery was and the negative and suppressive effect it had on black and white people. Through his description of Huck and Jim’s complicated relationship, Twain effectively stated his opinion of slavery, society’s oppressive influence supporting slavery and the possible toll it took on many personal relationships.