Tifani Wood Arthur

Throughout the book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, slavery is a very pertinent topic.  The view of slavery is quite similar for all the people of the town.  This view also is a factor of the culture.  Huck seems to have a slightly different view of slaves but still accepts slavery as everyone else does.

The general attitude toward slavery is that it’s normal.  It is completely accepted, except by the slaves, of course, though the book doesn’t go into much detail about the slaves’ opinions.  Slaves are viewed as material possessions or property, not human beings.  Some slave owners may treat their slaves a little better than others, as seen with Miss Watson, but they still don’t see them as people.  Even Miss Watson who treats her slaves fairly well planned to secretly sell Jim, only for money, though she promised him she wouldn’t sell him.  Slavery is not only seen as accepted but also the right thing to do.  If someone had been found out they had a runaway slave, they would’ve been punished for doing something wrong, not helping someone be free.  This is evident when Huck encounters a group of men searching people for runaway slaves, forcing Huck to hide Jim and make up a story that he is with his sick family, causing the men to leave.

This view of accepting slavery and seeing it as a good thing reflects the culture a great deal.  This shows first of all, people in this culture saw slavery as a thing they had control over.  The people were power hungry, and slaves were one of the things they had complete control of.  They could sell them if they wanted, make them do whatever they told them to, and make them do all the work.  Owning slaves also showed a sign of wealth.  In that culture if you didn’t own slaves, you were looked down upon and seen as being poor.  Another thing slavery shows about the culture is laziness.  The slaves did everything that consisted of hard work while all the white folk lounged around.  Some white folk did work, but the slaves took on the more difficult tasks, still showing laziness on the white men’s part.

Huck Finn did have a similar opinion as the general view, but his opinion didn’t really change about slavery as a whole.  His view may have been influenced by the culture he was immersed in, and he saw slavery as a good, Biblical thing.  This is evident when he contemplates whether or not to rescue Jim.  In the end he does go to rescue Jim, but he feels that it is a sin as he does it.  He sees it as being morally wrong.  Though Huck Finn sees slavery as something good and accepts it, his view of the slaves does change throughout the book.  At the beginning his relationship with Jim is Huck playing pranks on Jim and that’s it.  As the story progresses, especially after Huck and Jim find each other on Jackson’s Island, Huck’s view begins to change.

As they travel down the river together, Huck slowly begins to see Jim as a person, not just property.  He begins to see similarities between white men and Jim, seeing that there’s not all that much of a difference.  Huck sees Jim has some sort of intelligence when they begin to talk about kings, and Jim talks about all he knows of King Solomon.  Huck also sees that Jim can love just as much as a white man can when Jim is mourning for his wife and children after he hears a noise that reminds him of his daughter in the woods.  Altogether, Huck begins to care for Jim.  Huck starts to feel bad when he plays jokes on Jim, as he wouldn’t have before.  This is shown when he sincerely apologizes for trying to trick Jim.  After Jim tells Huck that he is his only friend, Huck feels pity for him.  In a way Huck and Jim can relate to each other; this may be why Huck sees Jim differently than everyone else sees Jim.  Huck and Jim relate in the way that they are both fighting for freedom from different parts of society.  Huck is fighting for freedom from education and the things controlling him in society, to be on his own, living on his own terms.  Jim, on the other hand, is fighting for literal freedom from the bondage of being a slave, which is a big part of society.

Throughout Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, slavery is very much accepted and seen as the right thing to do.  Huck may just feel the same way as society, because he is immersed in the society.  If he hadn’t been immersed in the society, he may have a different view, considering that he is one of the only people that sees slaves as being more than property as shown with Jim.