My issue with society.

I’ll be the first person to admit that I value intelligence amongst other people that I associate with before how they look or dress. I don’t think that being smart is anything to be ashamed of, and being called a nerd on a regular basis doesn’t bug me one bit. Brains before beauty, people.

What I can’t seem to understand is why society seems to place all of these Hollywood stars and starlets up on special little pedestals when they haven’t got enough brains, nor common sense, to function like a normal human being. True, not every single person in the entertainment business is a total moron. Quite a few of them are actually very intelligent and do a lot of good for the world. However, when you turn on the news or go to the homepage for MSN.com, what always seems to be there? Something about some moron who got caught smoking dope or doing something else idiotic. You know, all those people who can't seem to stay out of trouble for more than a month at a time.

Is this what our society truly values? Are these men and women the types that mothers want their children to look up to as role models? Do we all want the teenager girls of this generation to grow up to be clones of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan? Are we all supposed to be tanned to the point of looking like we’re covered in the powered cheese from a Mac n’ Cheese box? Why is it that someone who walks around with their perfect clothes and perfect hair and one-dimensional personality gets more recognition than something else that’s more important?

Are we really all so shallow that beauty comes before brains in this day and age? Really? This country is obsessed with the idea of celebrity, for crying out loud!

To be fair, I realize that not everyone thinks this way. I know a lot of people who hate all those Hollywood types because of how they are. I, along with those people, look up to folks with skills and smarts instead of a size four waist or a car that's worth more than my house. Still, it's rare to see someone who’s doing so much good for this world getting a ten minute slot on the news broadcasts like Lindsay Lohan does whenever she gets her coke-head self tossed back into rehab. It’s sad, really, to think that this country is more interested in hearing about her drug usage than about the three teenagers who killed themselves in the past month alone after being bullied at school over their sexualities (yes, this really happened: http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/seth-walsh-dies-after-suicide-attempt-another-teen-bullied-over-perceived-sexuality/19653569).

It just shows how the minds of the general public work, I guess. We want to hear all of the dirty little secrets of the actors and personalities that we like instead of the serious issues going on in society. It's easier for people to handle hearing LiLo going to jail for drugs for the umpteenth time than to hear about stories like the teens mentioned above.

I really do think that this needs to change. I think the media needs to stop presenting us with these images that these "stars" are what we need to center our attention around. There are more serious issues out there to take notice of than what the stars are eating for lunch today, who's getting a divorce from who, and where they bought their newest pair of jeans at.

All I know is that people would be a lot better off if they spent less time reading rubbish like this

and more time doing something productive.

Huck's "crisis of conscience".

There are many times in the book Huck Finn prior to the scenario of Jim being captured by the Phelps family where Huck argues with himself over what he’s going to do concerning the runaway slave. A part of him knows that it’s wrong for him to be helping Jim escape, not only because he feels guilty for betraying the widow Douglas but because it’s highly illegal. At the same time, however, he has gradually grown to see Jim as not just another black man but as someone he can trust and count on in tough situations. Huck views Jim as more of a friend than as someone who’s lesser than him as a person. This bond that they've developed helps Huck make his decision.

When Huck realizes that he can’t just let Jim be sold off down the river and decides that, wrong or not, he’s going to steal Jim back, I thought it was a really brave thing for him to do. Not only because he could potentially be caught and punished severely, but also because Huck is essentially ignoring his own conscious for the benefit of his friend. This seems, to me, like a very noble thing for Huck to do because he always appears to be struggling with internal conflicts concerning Jim’s freedom. When he essentially says that he might as well go to hell for what he’s going to do, but he’ll do it anyway because he cares about Jim, it really sends home the entire idea that Huck respects Jim a lot despite him being a runaway.

Considering that this book was released in a time period where common white people wouldn’t dare think about stealing a slave to help them gain freedom, I think that Twain expected the people reading his novel to be shocked and perhaps even outraged at Huck’s decision. However, I think that the other reaction Twain was hoping to get was realization from his readers as to how morally unjust slavery really was. I think he wanted to make people see that just because they were white, they didn’t have to agree with the practice of owning slaves or looking down upon African Americans.

Jim in Huckleberry Finn.

Up until this point in Huckleberry Finn, Huck has had this view of Jim as being a little bit simple minded and happy go lucky about things. There hadn’t really been any indications that Jim had problems like many of the other characters we meet or that he was suffering from any internal battles. However, when Jim finally reveals to Huck that he worries for his family every night it makes Huck realize that there’s a lot more to his friend than meets the eye. This little conversation between them drastically changes how Huck perceives Jim as a person. It makes Huck see Jim as more of a human being rather than just another slave who doesn’t have feelings and fears and worries.

Jim is a unique sort of character in the book in comparison to some of the others that we’ve met. He’s selfless and a little naive about how the world works, which shows in how he doesn‘t believe certain things that Huck tells him (like how French people speak a different language). I honestly don’t think he has a mean bone in his body. Some characters, like the dauphin and the duke, are vile and take advantage of the kindness that they're shown by townspeople. Jim is always kind and somewhat even tempered about things, and he treats people well. Despite this people still look down on him and treat him as if he’s less than human simply because he’s African American.

There aren’t many things that Jim seems to be truly concerned with. However, the things that he does worry about are very important to him. Gaining his freedom by fleeing with Huck and worrying about how his family is going to fare now that he’s gone seem to be the two main things that he thinks about. Jim is also concerned with doing the right thing morally, which is why he doesn’t like being around the dauphin and the duke.

Overall, it seems like Jim’s slowly becoming a more complex person, and Huck is starting to see that Jim isn’t his inferior but his equal. I think that this will only continue to strengthen their friendship as the book goes on.

Satire in Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain is well known for his technique of using satire to poke fun at as well as criticize society, certain people and even religion. In some cases his use of satire has helped people see the wrong in certain aspects of their way of life. This approach to writing is definitely seen in his novel Huckleberry Finn.

One of the most obvious use of satire in Huckleberry Finn, is Twain poking fun at the hypocrisy of religious people. Many families, even ones who were devout Christians and believed in treating other people right, owned slaves. An example of this, seen very early on in the book, is the Widow Douglas. She, along with Miss Watson, tries to teach Huck how important it is to be kind to others and to pray and believe in God. However, she also owns Jim as a slave at the same time and doesn‘t give him the same special treatment as she allows Huck to have. Twain uses these types of people to criticize those who thought they were perfect in God’s eyes despite treating African Americans as if they were less than human.

Another example of criticism about those who believe themselves to be perfect yet are quite the opposite is the feud going on between the Grangerford and Shepherdson families. According to Buck Grangerford, none of the men in their family are cowards and they even go so far as to take weapons with them to church in case they need to defend themselves against the Shepherdsons. Ironically when they are at church, the sermon is all about “brotherly love”. This is yet another perfect way to show how people back in those times thought that simply being religious made them perfect and above committing sins against their fellow man.

Superstitions, especially all of the ones believed by Jim, are really made fun of in the novel not because they are wrong but more because they’re amusing to read about. When Tom and Huck steal Jim’s hat and hang it up in a tree to convince him witches had visited while he slept, Jim blows the entire situation far out of proportion. It even gets to the point where other slaves come from all around to hear the tale, and Jim goes so far as to say that witches possessed him and took him all over the place during the night. Other examples are the hairball that’s supposed to be some sort of an oracle and Jim wanting to interpret the “dream” he had when he is reunited with Huck after the fog on the river.

I think that Mark Twain had a couple of different reasons for using satire so much in his writing. First, he wanted to make readers laugh and enjoy the story with how he portrayed some things in a more comical light. However the other reason, and perhaps the more important one, is how he used it to show his displeasure with certain aspect of society back in that time period. I believe that he wanted to show people what was wrong with their actions and hopefully would convince some of them to change how they acted as well as treated others.

Huck Finn

It seems as though people are either entirely for teaching Huckleberry Finn in high school classes, or completely against it for the usage of the word nigger over 200 times and other derogatory things directed towards the black characters in the book. While I completely understand why the word offends people, as it stems from the days when African Americans were treated as less than human in comparison to white people, I do not agree that the book should be banned from being read by the youth of today. As offensive as the word is to people, it's a part of not only the english language, but a part of the history of this country. There are many things that have happened in the past that still bother people today, but you can't just erase a part of the past because it offends you.

All of the bad names and things in this book, while shocking today if we hear them being said in a malicious manner, were commonplace in life back in those days. I think that what people need to understand is that this book wasn't meant to put down African Americans so much as to accurately depict how white people acted towards blacks. Once again, it is a real part of the past in our country, and like it or not you cannot simply erase it so that no one else can learn about it.

I fully support the teaching of Huckleberry Finn in schools. It does a good job of showing what life was like for African Americans back in those days, and how those who were looked down upon because of their race dealt with the daily descrimination against them. No one has the right to tell someone what book they can or cannot read. After all, what one person finds offensive might not be too big of a deal to someone else who wants to read the book.