Essay on Slavery in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

This can be shown in how Mark Twain chooses to describe the actions of the king and the duke in Huck Finn. The king and the duke, who are conmen, practice lines together before they put on their interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. The duke is practicing Juliet’s line for the play talking to Romeo saying, “You mustn’t bellow out Romeo! that way, like a bull – you must say it soft and sick and languishy, so – R-o-o-meo! that is the idea; for Juliet’s a dear sweet mere child of a girl, you know, and she doesn’t bray like a jackass” (Chapter 21). Mark Twain makes fun of the men with them acting like they are women and not doing Shakespeare correctly. They turn the play more into that of a comedy. In a later chapter, the king and the duke pretend Jim is wanted so they can “capture” him. Jim is described as a runaway slave “with a bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and ‘$200 reward’ under it. The reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot” (Chapter 20). Mark Twain uses this to show how much people want their slaves back. $200 in 1850 (when Huck Finn takes place) is worth $7,274.77 today. This shows how much the value of slaves was. Even if they went back to their land, they most likely would be killed. This shows that there was about a $7,000 reward for manslaughter. Mark Twain uses the king and the dukes’ actions to show the slave-owning class does not understand the proper roles people have in society. He does is this in sometimes small ways (Slave poster) or more noticeable ways (Romeo and Juliet).

Mark Twain makes fun of how the town’s people act by their actions at certain times. After the king and the duke perform their version of Hamlet, the townspeople think that the play was bad and are mad that they were scammed. On the third night the town comes together and tars and feathers the duke and the king. When Huck sees this he thinks, “well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn’t ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings CAN be awful cruel to one another” (Chapter 33). This shows the society/ town come together in acts of violence against something they deem not right. Even before that, when Sherburn is being lynched, he claims, “If any real lynching’s going to be done, it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come, they’ll bring their masks, and fetch a man along. Now leave—and take your half-a-man with you”—tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it when he says this” (Chapter 22). This shows the shift in people are talking about not being afraid of what others thought of them for doing such harmful things out in the open. These are more dramatic scenes where the southern society came together and became the judges of others themselves. Mark Twain uses these dramatic scenes in the book to show how they would come together, mainly only for deciding who is right and wrong.