Broken Society of Huckleberry Finn

      The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of those books that at times can be a joy to read and a dread to sit through. It has its moments of excitement and interest, but sometimes has its moments of slow pace and sleepy dialogue. But the subject I would like to touch upon is of course the major theme of the book, racism and slavery. Now this book being written in 1882, even with the end of the Civil War, African Americans were targeted by society and a teenager like Huck has to grow up learning the culture that has been brought. However like most kids growing up, Huck learns to question this culture and he does that by going on a long journey with a runaway slave named Jim. Like I said, Mark Twain wrote this book about two decades after slavery was gone however reconstruction failed and blacks were not having the best luck fitting into a whole new world, which (even though the book takes place during a time of slavery) he foreshadows this struggle to accept their rights and freedom in the book through characters. For example, Hucks father is a racist drunk who does a lecture on why blacks should not be able to vote and he rather kill himself then live in a society where blacks have rights similar to that. 
                 Huck and Jims relationship, could represent on the struggle between white people accepting black people as equals because Huck is for the first time gets to see a black man not as a servant, slave or lower class citizen but as an ordinary person and more importantly his friend. Ironically, Huck often knows better than the adults around him, even though he has lacked the guidance that a proper family and community should have offered him. Twain also frequently draws links between Huck’s youth and Jim’s status as a black man: both are vulnerable, yet Huck, because he is white, has power over Jim. Mark Twain showed a need of acceptance between both African Americans and White people before anyone of them could co-exist in a constantly changing society. 
                            The term "nigger" in the story is used very loosely in the book but this was always a topic I wanted to discuss. Nigger is not a bad word it's just used as a derogatory term and that's why when someone who is not black says it, it's like someone just set off a nuke in the room. In Huckleberry Finn, I believe that this term was shared by both black and white characters but it wasn't used as a word to hurt anyone, it was just a term that was used to refer to a black man and honestly I saw no reason why anyone should take offense to it. Even if it was used as a disgusting word to label black people, nigger is a historical term and should not be erased from history books. This word touches upon racism, from the past to present. People who are actual racist only use this word because they believe it will hurt the person. Racism is the belief that a race is superior and words like nigger were used to put people down into a lower class society. In Huckleberry Finn, that's basically how the word is used, in a way to split people into groups within this "civilized" world.
           Even though racism is important in Huck's case of growing up, what this story shares most commonly with other coming of age books is how it deals with childhood. Huck’s youth is crucial to his moral standing and decisions made throughout the book, for a child is open-minded enough to undergo the kind of development over time that all children do. Many example shown include Huck relationship with both Tom Sawyer and Jim (As I talked about in the second paragraph).Focusing on Huck and Tom sawyers interaction, it seems Tom is embodiment of immaturity since he lets his imagination control the world around him. Huck must leave Tom in order to grow up leading to his revelations with his time with Jim. So Tom Sawyer is the person who represents the immaturity that Huck left and Jim represents the maturity that Huck entered into.