Jim's Status As A Character example essay topic

Throughout Mark Twain's Novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, there have been many examples of Mark Twain being a racist with his constant degrading of Jim's character and his incessant use of the word "Nigger". He also illustrates Jim to be very gullible with the way he believes in many superstitions. As the novel progresses however, twain brings the status of Jim's character higher and closer to the status of whites. In the end of the novel, Twain finally shows that black should be given their freedom thus proving that Twain was not a racist. In Jim's first appearance in the beginning of the novel, Huck and Tom snuck out at night and are hiding from the "night watchman", Jim.

Jim asks "who goes there" and falls asleep, thus proving that Jim the "typical nigger" is lazy and is an example of how Twain degraded Jim. Another way Jim was degraded in the beginning of the novel was his language use. Jim uses very poor English, so poor that it is quite difficult to read and comprehend. Jim also tells Huck about the time when he was captured and taken to New Orleans by a bunch of witches. These are examples of the degrading of Jim and showing how ignorant and gullible he is. Right when one thinks that Jim is so ignorant and uneducated Twain introduces a worse character by the name of Pap.

Pap is portrayed as a sort of useless character, in the sense that he has no life, no education and is more ignorant than Jim. Pap is also the father of Huck which means he is white. When the one reads about the character of Pap, one realizes that that's how educated people were at the time. As a result, Jim's status as a character, a black man, is raised higher than Pap, a white man. When Huck and Jim decide they must leave Miss Watson and Pap and runaway, Twain writes about how Jim has a dream on how to save his family. He thinks that if he reaches the free side of the Ohio River, than he will work for enough money to free his wife.

After she is freed, they together will work to free their kids. Twain exemplified how Jim had a purpose in life and was going to use his hard earned money for something beneficial. Pap on the other hand, gets almost all of his money from begging from Huck and Judge Thatcher. When Pap does have money or fish that he caught, he would trade them for something useless like whiskey.

Once again Twain raises the status of a black man by illustrating how Jim has a dream and Pap, a white, is lazy and has nothing really to live for. Finally, Jim is also known as a very gullible person because of all of the times when Huck lied to Jim in the fog and told him that it was a dream. Jim actually believed in what Huck told him. From this one may infer how gullible Jim is, once again leading to Twain being a racist. Twain than introduces two characters who are known as The Duke and The Dauphin who are frauds.

They are known for tricking the community into giving them money, such as a fake tooth formula. With this, Twain epitomizes how gullible the communities are. Again Twain brings the status of blacks closer to the white community showing how they are both gullible and uneducated. Thus they should be treated the same and in the end Jim is rightly given his freedom. As one can see, Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is clearly not a racist. In the beginning of the novel one may infer that he is a racist because of his constant illustration of blacks being uneducated, gullible, and very superstitious.

As the novel progresses, however he uses the degrading of other white characters to bring the status of black up. The status gets so high, that it is equivalent to those of whites, and as a result Jim is finally given his freedom.