Mary Kate Ryser-Oatman

Journal #15

Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ch. XXXI

February 26, 2009

"After all this long journey...here was it all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars" (Twain 245).

Huckleberry Finn is angry that Jim was captured and then traded in by a man who wanted money for him. Jim would now have to become a slave again.

I was glad that we were able to read a chapter from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; I read this book as a project for my American Literature class in high school years ago and I really liked the novel. Being that it has been about four years since I have read it, I really did not remember this part, or any significant part in the novel, and I want to read it over again. What I love about Twain and the story of Huck Finn is the use of language; the dialect is so real. A lot of people do not realize that this was how people living in these parts of America spoke, especially the uneducated such as Huck Finn.

This passage is right before Huck contemplates writing a letter to Miss Watson to tell her where Jim is. Huck Finn grew up thinking that slaves were supposed to be slaves all their lives because of the color of their skin, and that they were not really people. He is starting to realize here that Jim's life and freedom is worth more than forty dollar, in fact, one cannot put a price on them. They are so valuable to Jim, and to everyone in America, and Huck sees that slaves deserve more than what they are put through. All his life, Huck has had no real male figure in his life that stood by him for very long or taught him anything valuable. With the exception of Miss Watson, Huck has had no one who really cared about him. Jim became his best friend out on the river, and they experienced things together that a lot of people never go through. An unlikely friendship formed between the two of them, and they depended on each other throughout their journeys. Huck finally found a male role model in Jim that he could look up to and learn from. I think that Twain put his own views on racism and slavery into Huck, but made it seem as though Huck was telling his story from himself as a character, not as Mark Twain or Samuel Clemens. It could have changed a lot of people’s views on these issues reading of a young boy who is helped by a runaway slave and the friendship they share. They see that Jim is a real human being, not an item that can be auctioned off for money.

According to Wikipedia, this idea of Huck Finn speaking out on these issues was Twain's main focus, "The main premise behind Huckleberry Finn is the young boy's belief in the right thing to do even though the majority of society believes that it was wrong." Huck Finn made an entire nation look at their own views on society around them. One boy's defiance of society and his compassion towards a runaway slave showed people that slavery was wrong, and that slaves were people too.