Twain and the Slavery Controversy Essay

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His decision that Jim is worthy of the same consideration as any other man is not only a sign of Huck's growth, but a direct statement that Twain was making to the people reading his book in a very racially divisive time.

Twain also makes many broader statements about humanity in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book is full of many characters who take advantage of others, like the Duke and the King, people who hate and fight senselessly, like the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons, and even honorable seeming men like Colonel Sherburn, who despite an eloquent speech about honor and the common man's cowardice shot and killed a defenseless drunk. Huck has a major epiphany when he sees the Duke and King, who have betrayed Huck and everyone else they met, tarred and feathered. Despite their actions against him and their obvious lack of regard for others, Huck feels sick at the sight and comments that "humans can be awful cruel to one another" (254). Slavery is one of the clearest example of man's cruelty to man, and is the central and most clear example used in the novel to illustrate the injustice inherent to the maltreatment of any human being. Jim is not portrayed as a perfect character, though he is in no way as morally corrupt as the Duke and the King, but he is still a man, just as they are. Huck applies true democracy to his relationships and eventually to his beliefs; this was something, Twain felt the people of his time needed to see.

It is fairly clear to see how Twain's use of slavery in an antebellum novel commented both specifically on the race relations of his time and his general beliefs in how mankind ought to get along.

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Another less obvious interpretation of Twain's use of slavery in the novel is as a metaphor for society. The civilization that Huck drifts though along the Mississippi is trapped in shackles of its own making; people are untrusting and untrustworthy, prone to violence and too mindful of how other people behave and believe, without being following their own admonitions. It is not until Jim is freed by Miss Watson's death that the novel is able to resolve, and everyone moves on with their lives. Perhaps Twain is suggesting that the world would not truly change until the older generation passed on. Whether or not this was his intention, Twain's use of slavery in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is definitely meant as a message for his readers hat caring for one another….....

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