The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain - 1129 Words

What makes a novel racist? The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is a story of race relations between slaves and whites and is often percieved as racist book. To understand what racism is, we have to define it. Racism is: a belief that inherent differences among various races determines cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others. Going off the definition of racism, this novel represents a clear racist sentiment as white characters excercise their superiority over blacks and society considers it okay. African Americans and slaves are treated as property, considered unintelligent and gullible, and are put through unneccessary hardship†¦show more content†¦During this time period in the South, slaves were considered property. Simply because of their skin color they were labeled as less than people. By that reasoning, slavery was justified and whites excerised their belief of superiority and their ability to rule African Americans. Jim himself reinforces this idea: â€Å"I’s wuth eight hund’d dollars (Twain 41). In this society, the opinion that slaves are property and you can put a numerical and monetary value on them is so engrained that even slaves begin to believe in their inferiority; which enforces the racist sentiment. â€Å"Wells, one night I hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn’t want to, but she could git eight hund’d dollars for me, en it ‘uz sich a big stack o’ money she couldn’ resis’,† (Twain 43). This quotation shows that slaves were property and simply worth the numerical value placed on them and their labor. â€Å"The first thing he would do when he got to a free state he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife†¦ and then they would both work to buy th e two children,† (Twain, 88). In the South, slaves were seperated from their wives and families with no regard for them, which shows that slaves were considered so inferior and unintelligent that family ties were not important. Throughout the