The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a Mark Twain classic, wonderfully demonstrates pre-Civil War attitudes about blacks held by whites. Twain demonstrates these attitudes through the actions and the speech of Huckleberry Finn, the narrator, and Jim, Miss Watson's slave. These two main characters share a relationship that progresses from an acquaintance to a friendship throughout the novel. It is through this relationship that Mark Twain gives his readers the realization of just how different people's attitudes were before the Civil War. Twain also reveals the negative attitudes of whites toward blacks by the cruel manner in which Jim is treated with such inferiority. The beginning of Huck and Jim's relationship is tainted with racism. When introducing the reader to Jim's character, Huck describes Jim as illiterate, childlike, and superstitious. Although Huck describes Jim in a racist manner, it is not Huck himself who is racist. Instead, the widow, Miss Watson, and Pap, the adult "role models" in Huck's life, are who instilled this hatred in Huck. Racism was all around Huck, and the transference of this bigotry to Huck could have hardly been avoided. Although Huck is a bit racist to Jim at the beginning of their journey, the negative attitude held by Huck begins to fizzle as their adventure continues on. The more Huck and Jim go through together, the closer the two become. Huck begins to see Jim as a friend and vice versa. By the end of their journey, Huck disagrees with society's idea that blacks are inferior. One example of this is evident when Huck doesn't tell anyone of Jim's whereabouts. Huck doesn't tell anyone because he knows that if he does, Jim will be forced to return to slavery. Instead, Huck chooses to "go to Hell" for his decision. He has shied away from society's acceptance of slavery. One of the ways Twain exposes the folly of the negative attitudes toward blacks is through describing the whites' cr...
