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Both Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Athol Fugard’s Master Harold and the boys convey a strong theme of racism, though very plain and simple. The books themselves are not racist but merely portray the racism that took place back then. Mark Twain uses racism to compare society’s values to an individuals while Athol Fugard uses the discussions between Sam and Hally to demonstrate the racial tensions of his lifetime in South Africa.
Mark Twain wrote "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in 1876, when slavery was legal and the racial separation between white men and slaves was natural. ... The dictionary defines racism as "a doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that ones own race is superior. ... The main character that racism was shown towards was Jim. ... Another avid example of this is through the quote from Huck’s father, ”There was a free nigger there from Ohio…. ... He makes statements like “Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell”(chapter XVI) While Jim was held prisoner at the Phelp’s farm, he was always talked about as the “runaway nigger” and in chapter 15 when Huck plays a cruel joke on Jim and upsets Jim more that he had intended, afterwards, Huck says that it took him fifteen minutes to get worked up to humble himself to a “nigger.” Huck did apologize to Jim though, in chapter 2 Huck felt no remorse at all for tricking Jim into thinking he’d been ridden by witches and says “Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire;” While statements like this may seem inappropriate, they are there to help portray Huck’s character, as well as the setting in the pre-civil war south.
Approximate Word count = 1340
Approximate Pages = 5.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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