Hi guys! So I read the articles that Mrs. Kloser posted on the homework website about the use of the n-word. I found these articles very interesting because Charles Barkley and Adrian Peterson, two very respected African-American athletes, supported the use of this word. I understood where they were coming from because you hear the word used pretty often in today's society, but even though it is commonly used today and is not necessarily considered an insult, I still don't agree that people should be able to use it whenever they want. I don't think the use of the word is necessary; why couldn't they just use a different word instead? If it was once used as an insult to their own race, why would they think it's okay to use it whenever they pleased? I would consider that disrespectful to their heritage and an ignorance about where they came from.

I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on whether there were any changes in the relationship between Huck and Jim in chapters 11-15? Specifically, do you think that they see each other as equals, now that both are relying only on each other to survive and make their escape down the river possible? Do you think that Huck's saving Jim from the people coming to the island to hunt for him, and Huck's taking the lead in deciding how to escape and capture the men on the wreck show that he still sees himself as superior? Do you think that the relationship between Huck and Jim will affect whether they stay permanently together once they escape somewhere safe, or split ways once they reach the free states?

I think that while it's true that a lot of Huck's prejudice towards Jim seems to come from the society he has been raised in, it's also true that he generally forms his own decisions and has no problems defying social norms such as formal education and religion. In spite of this, he personally sees Jim as inferior. He doesn't do this completely mindlessly, but actually makes several statements about Jim's quality as a servant based on his own judgment. For example, after Huck and Tom sneak past Jim and take his hat the night they start their gang, and Jim superstitiously interprets their prank to think that he was flown around the country by witches in his sleep, Huck remarks that  "Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches." Thus, Huck is observant of the way Jim acts and is treated, yet he still seems to take Jim's status for granted. When the two of them meet on the island later on, Huck almost immediately orders Jim to start a fire and help him make something to eat. Yet despite this, he also immediately agrees to keep Jim's secret of running away and listens to Jim's input to some extent when trying to decide how they can best hide and survive on the island. I think the fact that Huck can look objectively at Jim's status and in some ways treat him as an equal, yet still take the fact that he has the right to order Jim around for granted shows how ingrained slavery is in the society Huck has grown up with. Because of this, I think the only way Jim can stay free is to flee to one of the free states such as Illinois and make a permanent break with everyone in his old life. The culture of slavery is too ingrained even a fairly independent-thinking person such as Huck, for Jim to have an opportunity of keeping his freedom while returning to the area he lived in before.
 

Hey everybody!! I thought I would start the ball rolling by discussing one of the obviously apparent themes of Huck Finn: slavery. The town that Huck lives in, St. Petersburg, resides in a slave state and therefore, it appears that almost everybody owns slaves. However, what struck me was the seemingly hypocritical nature of slavery, because even the Widow Douglas, described as a pious Christian, owns slaves. Do we have any thoughts on the relationship between owners and slaves, or even the "household" type of slavery that Twain seems to be focusing on?