I think it is time to discuss a
citizen’s social responsibility to return a runaway slave. During these times
slaves were seen as nothing but property. Since the beginning of Huck and Jim’s
adventure, Huck has to lie about why Jim was wandering around with him. This
was a major problem that they had to overcome. We see that Huck still treats
Jim as inferior, which is to be expected, because of the environment he grew up
in. In these chapters Huck has to make a decision. While traveling down the river
with Jim, Huck starts to see how Jim is like any other man. He eventually
chooses his friendship over religion and his social responsibility. He knew
people would look down on him and Miss Watson would be upset but that did not
matter anymore. This was another social responsibility that Huck ignores.
Throughout the novel, we can see how Huck chooses to go with his gut rather
than what he is told. He does not care about the consequences; he just went
with whatever felt right. At this moment, I think Huck advances past the
thinking of his time. We see that the other people in this novel just believe what they are told and follow it. A very surprising twist was Tom
Sawyer’s entrance into the situation. I do not think Tom was okay with saving
Jim because he cared about Jim but because he wanted to help his friend, Huck
and because he likes adventure. Huck is always saying how smart Tom is but in
my opinion Huck is more intelligent.
4 comments:
i like how you brought up that huck still treats jim as an inferior. throughout their adventure together, there is still a part of hucj that sees jim as someone beneath him. and yet huck still saves jim from being captured as much as he can. huck truly cares for jim. this idea of huck not being able to decide which opinion he truly believes kind of relates back to huck as a person. he does not know where he belongs or where he is meant to fit in, and he has never had a stable environment. huck really does not know what his responsibility is to society as a young boy, and to be honest, i do not think huck will ever be able to truly find his place among his society
I also noticed that even when Huck was remembering all of the great times he and Jim had together, some of them showed moments where Jim was expressing his supposed inferiority to Huck and showing that he still felt the dividing line between slave and nonslave (even though Huck doesn't necessarily think about it that much anymore). I liked how you mentioned that Tom is willing to enter serious situations in order to have any fun he can get out of them, but Huck is deeply affected every time he has the power to change somebody's life and does not take it lightly.
Hey! So I to discuss how “we can see how Huck chooses to go with his gut rather than what he is told, and does not care about the consequences”, which is a major plot development in the novel. Speaking of developments, when you mention Jim’s feelings of inferiority to Huck, it seems as if the racial barriers of that time get in the way of their friendship, a friendship that has continued to develop throughout the novel. Continuing with the idea of development, I think your completely right when you say that Huck’s way of thinking is completely advanced past his time, which is why we are able to analyze his character so easily, and why his character is so different from Tom’s. Anyway, good job!
It is true that Huck is more intelligent than everyone else in this time. During this time, everyone’s minds where closed. They were closed for equality and what is morally right. For the people during this times period, what was right to do, even morally, was what the law said. Whites felt superior from blacks and blacks were treated like white’s property. Blacks didn’t have any type of rights and they were not supposed to think on their own. They were supposed to do whatever their owner told them to do, no matter if they liked it or not. In despite of these harsh and very strict beliefs Huck manages to do the complete opposite from what was right by law. He doesn’t even care if he goes to hell for saving Jim. Jim is his friend and he will save him no matter what because in his heart that is what is right to do.
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