As I finished the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I realized that all the themes about society are finally coming together. The themes seemed easier to understand and helped me connect to earlier ones in earlier chapters.
As tom’s reputation seems to always be of importance to him he reminds me of how society is. Peer pressure and conformity are what Tom represents. From this you can confer that Huck is usually against or thinks he’s immature so with this Huck has proven that he is unlike society and is a one of a kind person. Tom is a foil to Huck because Tom brings out the qualities in Huck that are not what society is unlike Tom who is society. When trying to free Jim Huck feels he has nothing to lose but Tom does. He tries not to get Tom involved with the freeing but Tom insists. Tom has a family and a life at home and Huck just has Jim and his life. Huck is willing to give up his life for Jim’s which proves that he thinks of himself as small in the world or a grain of sand on the beach. He thinks he is a worthless member of society.
The theme of racism blatantly makes its appearance when Jim and Sally are talking about the steam boat explosion. Sally is asking Jim if anyone was on the boat or got hurt. Jim replies, “no’m. Killed a nigger.” Sally replies back, “Well its lucky. Because sometimes people do get hurt.” This hit a home run for me because I knew that this type of racism was present in the book but I never knew it was this harsh. Some of the people think the African Americans are not real people! Sally thinks the black person that died is nothing compared to if a white person did. Now, as a reader, I know what Huck has been dealing with throughout the whole book. He is trying to decide right from wrong with a white racist society pounding in his head.
Tom’s actions in the endings of this book made my emotions and mind go haywire. Tom’s real personality comes out when he knew for two months that Jim had been free because Miss Watson died and set him free in her will. He plays along with Jim and Huck thinking it is more of a game rather than a serious situation. Again, Tom is the white racist’s society because he thinks of Jim as a slave rather than a person like the other people of that time period.
In the last chapters when tom gets injured Jim proves to the readers again that he is a real human being by helping the doctor treat Tom. But then, the argument appears about Miss Watsons will saying that freeing Jim does not apply immediately but only a suggestion. So anyone can say Jim is still a slave. As the family is bickering over the situation I wonder that now I know why Huck backed away from the white society. Mark Twain finishes the book after the civil war ends, which means that slavery has been abolished and African Americans are now free. They are free in a literally sense but not a mental sense. Some people will still think of them as the same slaves of nothing. This theme is that again people never really accept change.
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