Defense Of Twains Characterization Of Jim example essay topic

Within the context of this historical period, Twain penned Jim, stereotyping him in the minstrel tradition, with slave dialect and a mind filled with superstition (Ellison 422). In defense of Twains characterization of Jim, however, Daniel Hoffman writes, The minstrel stereotype... was the only possible starting-point for a [Southern-born] white author attempting to deal with Negro character a century ago (Hoffman 435). Twains stereotypical depiction of Jim originates from traditions of his time, Writing at a time when the black faced minstrel was still popular, and shortly after a war which left even the abolitionists weary of those problems associated with the Negro, Twain fitted Jim into the outlines of the minstrel tradition (Ellison 421-22). Minstrel shows, first appearing in the 1840's, were theatrical productions typically performed by white actors who blackened their faces with greasepaint and wore white gloves to render comic burlesques of African American speech and manners (Carey-Webb 24). The function of the minstrel mask, the black-faced figure of white fun, was to veil the humanity of Negroes thus reduced to a sign, and to repress the white audiences awareness of its moral identification with its own acts and with the human ambiguities pushed behind the mask. (Elision 421).

Twain completed Huckleberry Finn in 1884, at a time when black identity in American society was undefined. Even though blacks had been granted citizenship in 1870 by the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, Southern white society still looked upon them as sub-human creatures without souls or feelings. Post-Civil War Federal Reconstruction programs had failed miserably in their goal to re-unite a divided nation and to give economic and legal assistance to blacks struggling to find their place in white mainstream society. Instead of improving the status of blacks and establishing in practice those rights to which they were constitutionally entitled, the programs only succeeded in generating the alienation of an already demoralized white South and escalating racial tensions. Although Twain may have used a negative stereotype in his creation of Jim, throughout the novel he provides his audience with a clear view of Jims humanity behind the minstrel mask. This contradiction reflects the confused view that many held of African Americans in Twain's time, which considered blacks as subhuman with no feelings and emotions even while this view began to be challenged.

Black novelist Booker T. Washington noted how Twain "succeeded in making his readers feel a genuine respect for Jim, and pointed out that Twain, in creating Jim's character, had exhibited his sympathy and interest in the masses of the negro people. In order to undermine Hucks misconception of nigger Jim, Twain first exposes Jims humanity when the two are separated from each other on the river during a dense fog. Huck, alone in a canoe, searches for Jim, who is alone on the raft. When Huck finally catches up with the raft, he finds Jim asleep, apparently exhausted from the terrifying ordeal.

Instead of waking Jim and celebrating their reunion, Huck decides to play a trick on him. Lying down beside Jim, Huck awakens him and says, Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didnt you stir me up? (285) Jim is overjoyed to see his friend alive and tells him so.

Huck, however, acts as if he had never left the raft and convinces Jim that he has dreamed the entire episode. Confused and intimidated by Hucks foolery, Jim acquiesces to the lie and thus his own sense of inferiority. Jim reverts to the only means he knows to help him rationalize his bewilderment superstition. He redefines his real experience with a fictitious interpolation painted up considerable with supernatural warnings and signs (287).