Slavery

1. Slavery Huck Finn Scrapbook

2. Introduction • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn • Written by Mark Twain • Jim is a runaway slave. • Huck is running from his drunken father. • Even though they have different colors of skin they manage to escape together.

3. Slavery • A person who is the property of and wholly subject to another. • existed in earliest civilizations • Some slaves treated well, others treated poorly

4. 19th Century pov • Slavery • Accepted in South • Needed help with the cotton and crops • Cheap to no cost for labor

5. Example # 1 • In the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the men took Jim and locked him in the cabin when they found he was a runaway. • The men also gave him only water and bread, cuffed both his hands and legs, and hit him on the head once in awhile.

6. Example #2

7. Example #3

8. pov • Africans as slaves • different color of skin • different beliefs • whites felt they were better than them or had more power over them • Often times white men would beat their slaves

9. HUCK’S CHANGE • Huck and Jim begin to start a friendship and start to deeply care for each other.

10. Example #1 • When Jim sees Huck in the woods and they both get on a boat in attempt to runaway, they know that in order to accomplish escaping they will need each other.

11. EXAMPLE #2 • Even when Huck was separated from Jim while staying with the Grangerfords for a few days, he and Jim were reunited with each other and continued to escape.

12. Example #3 • When Jim was locked in the cabin, Huck and Tom made him very comfortable in a tough situation.

13. Cause of change • Huck’s mind changed because even though Jim had different colored skin, Huck knew Jim was selfless and would do anything for him. • Huck also listened to the stories Jim told of his family and knew that he cared very much for others. • He realized that without Jim there to protect him and be with him, Huck never would have made it as far as he did.

14. 1885 POV • Rocky Mountain News • One of Mark Twain’s best books • Fascinating • Does not say anything about the slaves or how it related to the time era in which it was written. • Critique was written with the time era in which slavery was accepted in the South.

15. 1908-1925 POV • Brooks critique • Huck’s behavior was intolerable. • He ran around with a slave, skipped out of school and ran across the country by himself. • Brooks believed that this book was not appropriate for the time period in which it was written.

16. 1973 pov • Geisman critique • Language and the situations that Huck was in were suitable as entertainment for children. • Its censorship was brought up quite a bit.

17. Current cultural makeup • After hundreds of years, Africans now are as equal in America as whites. • Race is very important now in the 21st century. • Now as our culture has changed, we want to make African-Americans comfortable and not use language that would offend other races. • We still have racial issues around, but we no longer can force other races to work with no pay.

18. Example #1 “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.” - Martin Luther King Jr. • http://www.mlkonline.net/sounds.html

19. Example #2 • New version of Huckleberry Finn • Politically correct • Slave to replace N-word • Occurs 219 times -ABC World News

20. Example #3 •      “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.” -Harry A. Blackmun

21. SEE THE FUTURE • Even though African Americans are treated equally today that does not mean that we still don’t think differently about them. • There are still people who think of them as dirt rather than people. • I do believe that in the future we will continue to accept that they are different colors, but they are still human. • I see other classics being changed. Huck Finn was just the start to a change.

22. What I want • I want classical texts to remain how they are. • It gives the literature a purpose • Students can feel how it was in the past • The literature would not have the same meaning or teach us how to think out side of the box • Puts students in a different persons shoes

23. Continued • The authors meant no criticism towards the race, but wanted to express how other races were treated by the whites. • In Huckleberry Finn if they changed the N-word to slave how is that not offensive to them. If they really wanted to change the word to make it politically correct they might as well change it to African American. This would make it politically correct, I do not see the difference between N-word and slave.

24. Credits • Blackmun, Harry. Quotes. <thinkexist.com/quotations /racism>. • Braiker, Brian. Latest word on Huck Finn. 4 January 2011. <abcnews.go.com/US/latest -word-huck- finn/story?id=12539499>. • Clarkson, Thomas. "Diagram of an African slave ship." The Gilder Lebrman Collection (1808): Vol. 2. • Martin Luther King's Address . 28 August 1963. <mlkonline.net/dream.html>. • Riley, Richard. "African-American family." The Gilder Lebrman Collection (Late 19th Century). http://thinkexist.com/quotatio ns/racism/ • Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell, 1885.