Fiction, Essays, and Other Things

  Few will dispute the place of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn among the pillars of American literature (it is, in fact, sited more than any other contender as the Great American Novel), approaching it in secondary schools has proven something of a conundrum for at least fifty years. Reconciling the conflict between understanding Twain’s intent; ridiculing the institution of slavery in the way he knew best, biting satire, and the raw language, however accurate, directing at Jim the runaway slave establishes conversations that, as educators, literary scholars and a nation we should and have been having, I wat to explore here racial identity through the eyes of Huck Finn and how that cements his bond with Jim. Huckleberry Finn is, unquestionably, a product of his environment, a boy from the sleepy town of St. Petersburg where slavery is a way of life. He knew of Jim, the man who would become his companion up the Mississippi but saw him as little more than Miss Watson’s slave. He...