the argot to Blacks and not to Whites throughout the novel. There is not
one sentence in the treatise spoken by an African American that is not
comprised of broken English. The but in spite of that, the broken English
does add an entraining piece of culture to the milieu.
The second way Clemens differentiates people in the novel of
different skin color is that all Blacks in the book are portrayed as stupid and
uneducated. The most blatant example is where the African American
character Jim is kept prisoner for weeks while he is a dupe in a childish
game that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn play with him. Clemens spends the
last three chapters in the novel to tell the tale of how Tom Sawyer
maliciously lets Jim, who known only unto Tom is really a free man, be kept
prisoner in a shack while Tom torments Jim with musings about freedom
and infests his living space with rats, snakes, and spiders. At the end of
this charade Tom even admits, ?Why, I wanted the adventure of it??
The next two groups Clemens contrasts are the rednecks and the
scholarly. In the novel Clemens uses interaction between backwoods and
more highly educated people as a vital part of the plot. The main usage of
this mixing of two social groups is seen in the development of the two very
entertaining characters simply called the duke and the king. These two
characters are rednecks who pretend to be of a more scholarly background
in order to cozen naive people along the banks of the Mississippi. In one
instance the king and the duke fail miserably in trying to act more
studiously when they perform a ?Shakespearean Revival.? The duke totally
slaughters the lines of Hamlet saying, ?To be, or not to be; that is the bare
bodkin. That it makes clamity of so long life. For who fardel bear, till
Birnam Wood do come to Dunshire, but that fear of something after death.?
Thirdly Clemens contrasts adults and children. Clemens portrays
adults as the conventional group in society, and children as the
unconventional. In the story adults are not portrayed with much bias, but
children are portrayed as more imaginative. The two main examples of this
are when Huckleberry fakes his death, and when Tom and Huck ?help? Jim
escape from captivity. This extra imaginative aspect Clemens gives to the
children of the story adds a lot of humor to the plot.
Fourthly in the novel Clemens contrasts women and men. Women in
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are portrayed as frail, while men are
portrayed as more outgoing. The foremost example of a frail woman
character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Tom Sawyer?s Aunt
Sally. One example was when Tom and Huck were collecting wildlife to
live in the shack that Jim is being held prisoner in they accidentally let
loose some snakes in Aunt Sally?s house and Aunt Sally, ??would just lay
that work down, and light out.? The main reason that Clemens portrays
women as less outgoing, is because there are really only four minor
women characters in the novel, while all major characters are men.
Lastly Clemens contrasts two families engaged in a feud. The
names of the two families are the Sheperdson?s and the Grangerford?s.
The ironic thing is that, other than their names, the two factions are totally
similar and even attend the same church. This intolerance augments a
major part to the plot because it serves as the basis for one of the
escapades Huck and Jim get involved in on their trip down the Mississippi.
In conclusion the entire plot of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is
rooted on intolerance between different social groups. Without prejudice
and intolerance The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn would not have any of
the antagonism and intercourse that makes the recital interesting.