Adventures Of Huck Finn And History Essay, Research Paper

The world in which we live in now is much less oppressive than say the world

lived in the middle of the 1800?s. Up until the Civil War, the South depended

on their ?peculiar institution? of slavery, in order to be productive a

successful. Most people believed slavery was not wrong, but those who thought

otherwise seldom tried to alter it. In general if surrounded by oppressive

environment, one does not usually try to make a difference in that world. This

is because people are afraid to defend what is right against a whole mass of

people who believe otherwise. Huck Finn in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,

Billy Budd in Billy Budd, and Frederick Douglass in his autobiography all

portray individuals who because of their good, innocent qualities go up against

the oppression in their society. Living in an oppressive society does not always

draw you to do the wrong thing you are still capable of generating change,

whether it be for a certain individual or against a whole mass of people. Billy

Budd starts off on the ship the ?Rights of Man?, Melville obviously showing

his intent in the naming of the first ship. This shows that on this ship where

Billy wanted to be and chose to be he had rights. That he and the other crew had

choices of what to do and how to be. Then along comes the British navy and

decides that they are going to take Billy aboard their ship ?Power of War?.

This is when Billy is brought into an oppressive society. This is the navy and

wartime during which rules must be followed as well as a lifestyle that must be

followed. Billy is a poor innocent boy with a childish stutter. This stutter

shows Billy?s humane side, a flaw, as well as leading you to the thinking that

he has the innocence of a child. This stutter is connected to innocence because

of its childish qualities. When most children begin speaking they have some sort

of stutter, which usually goes away. The stutter parallels innocence because it

is showing that you are just learning how to talk and don?t really comprehend

the correct way to make sounds, as you grow older you learn and the stutter

disappears. Like innocence you are born with it, but as you grow older you

usually are not portrayed as innocent any longer. Billy is like the premature

kid who still has both his stutter and his innocence. Billy is introduced to

many people aboard his new ship and is confronted by John Claggart. In this

movie Claggart is the one who Billy must actually go up against. Being in an

oppressive society and Claggart being the master Billy is forced to listen to

Claggart. Although he tries to avoid him he is nevertheless confronted by him.

Claggart and Billy are totally opposite in character. Claggart is an evil man

who is out to get Billy whereas Billy is a sweet innocent young man who tries to

help others. It is these two opposite traits that eventually lead to the death

of both of these men. Billy tries to avoid Claggart because he has heard of his

evil and does not want to deal with it. It is until he hears of Claggart?s

accusations that he is involved in a mutiny that he confronts him leading to the

deathblow, which Billy delivers to Claggart. Captain Vere now holds a court to

determine Billy?s consequences. Captain Vere is torn here between doing the

right thing morally and doing the right thing legally, and in the end he

realizes he has sworn to uphold the law and does just that. Billy did indeed

kill a higher officer and according to the laws must be sentenced death. On the

other hand, Billy was sticking up for himself. Captain Vere?s legal side wins

the battle; Billy is condemned and hanged. Billy?s hanging meant a lot. It

tore the officers among themselves, most saying Billy was justified in his

actions therefore should not be punished to the extent of death. This makes a

difference in the whole issue of oppression aboard this ship. We now know that

the officers, while usually acting inhumane, actually do have a humane side and

are capable of being in touch with that side when needed. Billy changes the

society by killing Claggart because now no one aboard the ship will have to deal

with his evilness again, although Billy and his goodness did not prevail in this

oppressive society the lasting effects of his actions will. By killing Claggart

he has forcefully removed all of the evil, except Squeek, aboard this ship.

During the trial we are shown Captain Vere?s human side with his struggle to

decide which is more important moral or legal. While most would agree that he

should have gone with his moral side one realizes that Captain Vere is not evil.

He is the medium between Billy who is the best end of good and Claggart who is

as evil as it gets. When being hanged Billy yells out ?God bless Captain Vere?,

which shows until the end he was still good and makes Captain Vere feel awful,

it was now too late to save poor Billy Budd. Billy?s doing this may have

forever changed Captain Vere into making the ?right? decision next time, one

can only speculate. Billy was just a boy oppressed onto a ship that he didn?t

want to be on, but Frederick Douglass was born a black man in the south, a

society raging with slavery. And like Fredierick Douglass he was living in an

oppressive society and managed to initiate change among the oppressive society.

Frederick Douglass was born a black man into pre-Civil war southern society. On

January 1, 1834 his master, Master Thomas ordered Douglass, to go to a man named

Covey. Covey is much like Claggart except for the degree of intelligence which

Covey seemed to lack. They are also alike in the fact they were both determine

to uphold their jobs. Claggart was an official and had to make the right legal

decisions and Covey was a slavbreaker who had to do that to slaves in order to

keep his job. Covey looks at Douglass as an animal, an ox, and treats him like

one too. This is like Claggart who treated the people aboard the ship as

machines and not as humans. Covey was a slavebreaker; thus, beating the blacks

who were sent to him to be broken in. Douglass gets sick and Covey does not

believe that he is sick only that he wanted to get out of working so he

continues to treat him as a healthy slave would be treated. This is where Covey

and Douglass begin their escapades with each other. Douglass begins to mouth off

to Covey saying he wished he had another master and this leads to Douglass

running away and then returning and then the final incident and to Douglass

ultimately escaping. Throughout these few ordeals it shows that Douglass would

rather die then to give in. He looked to God to help him through and in the end

that must have worked, for he escaped. Douglass does not change society as a

whole nor does he change something for somebody else. He changes the oppressive

state for himself. He escaped to Massachusetts in 1868. This is where he tries

to attack the society as a whole. In Massachusetts he became an active

anti-slavery lecturer. By changing his surroundings, those of an oppressed

person he was given the chance to try and change slavery as an institution. By

escaping to a free state he was able to attack the institution of slavery and be

safe, instead of attacking one master and having to suffer consequences. Unlike

Billy Budd who did not prevail in his oppressive society Frederick Douglass has

the chance to. While putting his life on the line to escape he still did it and

in the end it would help him make a difference for all the people still

succumbed by the harsh ?peculiar institution.? Frederick Douglass was a

nonfictional black who had to escape his master in order to gain freedom, Jim in

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was also a black who was mustered into

slavery. Huck Finn is a young white boy who does, at first, seem unaffected by

the institution of slavery. He lives with a woman named Widow Douglas because

his Pap is a drunkard and abusive. Jim is a older black man who is enslaved by a

woman called Miss Watson, who happens to be Widow Douglas? sister. This is the

first relationship of Jim and Huck. It is not until Pap captures Huck and Huck

is forced to escape from him that he meets Jim for real. Huck escapes from his

abusive father to Jackson?s Island where he finds Miss Watson?s runaway

slave Jim. At first sight of Jim Huck was glad to see him for he did not want to

be lonesome anymore. Then Huck is faced with the first and everlasting dilemma

of their friendship. Jim was not a person he was a slave and slaves were

property; therefore, he should be returned to his rightful owner, Miss Watson.

This is a moral dilemma for Huck throughout the whole novel. When Huck finally

decides he is not going to tell and return Jim it is his first opposition to

society, he realizes how he would feel about himself knowing he turned Jim in.

Huck has been brought up in a society where blacks are hated and not people;

therefore, helping him to runaway is a sinful thing on Huck part. In this

episode you feel how Huck?s innocence and inner feelings can come above the

bad and wrong of the society; thus, leading him to do the correct thing. It

would not be morally correct to bring Jim back for he would be enslaved once

again and that was an inhumane institution. Huck?s other major dilemma is to

realize that Jim was human. This is the underlying factor in this novel. Huck is

brought up to believe Jim not human and if he can overcome this idea society has

taught him then he would not be brought to his other dilemma, if he should turn

Jim in. The whole novel develops the idea and ultimately Huck realizes that Jim

is human who cares just as much about his life and family as does any white

person. The first correlation between Huck and Jim is that they are both afraid

of something that leads them to run away. For Huck this is his father, and for

Jim it is slavery. Huck knows that he himself is human because he rarely does

anything bad and when he does, like put the rattlesnake at Jim?s feet, he

feels remorse for his actions and he also feels sympathy and hurt. His

sympathetic and hurtful side is shown when Buck dies later in the novel Huck

cries because of how good Buck was to him before he died. Huck and Jim are both

alike in that they are both superstitious. This is shown even before they run

away when Huck goes to Jim in order for Jim to read his future through the

hairball. The first real sign of human relationship on the raft trip is when

Huck and Jim stay up all night talking, about moral issues in particular. During

this time Huck tries to out reason Jim several times. Then there comes a fight

in their friendship. When they are on the raft and they get stuck in fog and Jim

falls asleep. When he is awakened Huck pretends they never got separated and

that it was a dream on Jim?s part. When Jim finally realizes it is not a dream

but in fact what really happened he gets very mad at Huck and calls him trash

leading Huck to apologize. By Huck apologizing for this incident you see that

Huck is beginning to look at Jim as a person because he would not apologize to

just a piece of property, for property has no feelings and you would need not

apologize to something that has no feelings. Huck also notes that Jim must be

human to a level when he talks about his family. While Huck doesn?t think it

is right Jim wants to free his family because they are someone else?s

property, he still notices that Jim has a family and wants to be with them. The

king and the duke are the people who push Jim to act more human than Huck thinks

he is. This is because they push Jim to a point when he really starts to suffer.

When Huck sees Jim suffering because of the duke and the king he realizes that

Jim really is human. Jim says ?Dese is all I kin stan?? showing that he

can?t take the king anymore. He doesn?t think the duke is as bad as the king

is. And the king and the duke are the two people who bring the raft trip to an

end. After they sold Jim Huck thinks it would have been better for him to have

returned him to Miss Watson in the beginning where he knew Jim would be treated

better than at some other plantations. Huck knows that society would look down

upon him for helping Jim to escape and while Huck realizes Jim is a human it

does not change his view of blacks in general. When he tells Aunt Sally that

nobody is hurt saying. ?No?m. Killed a nigger?. This shows that while Huck

has realized that Jim is not property, but human that it does no apply to all

blacks, just to Jim. You understand that Huck sees Jim as a person especially

since he?ll ?go to hell? before he will betray Jim and turn him in. Huck

is very surprised that Tom Sawyer is going to help free Jim, when in reality Tom

already knew Jim was freed and was doing this stuff to a freed slave, while Jim

gives up his freedom in order to help Tom when he gets shot in the leg. By this

time Huck already knows of Jim?s humanness and that is why he tries to help

him out of the Phelp?s plantation. Huck overcomes society?s evilness towards

blacks in one situation. Although he lives in a society who hates blacks he

doesn?t necessarily do the wrong thing because of what society says. While Jim

got his freedom in the end because of Miss Watson freeing him Huck still tried

to help him overcome the society?s oppression against Jim. In all three of

these instances Billy Budd, Frederick Douglass, and Huck Finn all try to

overcome oppression of a society. In Budd?s case it was not a huge force such

as slavery was in the south, but he still had to overcome his own local

oppression. Budd killed the real evil on his ship allowing for a better

lifestyle for the remaining crewmembers. He also brought reality and morality to

a higher level for the officers and Captain Vere, which may have changed them

forever and this would not happen again. In Douglass? life he overcame

oppression for himself and by doing that he tried to help all of those who were

affected negatively by the institution of slavery. He ran away; thus, releasing

himself from the oppressive nature of the south and after doing so he became an

abolitionist trying to help others become like him and be freed. In Huck Finn

Huck goes against all of what he knows in society to help Jim runaway. After

finally realizing that Jim was human and that he should not give him back Huck

does everything in his power to help Jim runaway. Huck?s innocence and good

heartedness show through even when society would judge him wrong. Huck overcame

society?s oppression towards blacks for himself because he realized that Jim

was a person and not a piece of property. Oppressive societies still remain in

today?s world although not nearly as prevalent or as torturous as they were in

the days of Billy, Frederick, Huck, and Jim. These characters can motivate one

to show that you against a large oppressive society can, alone, make a

difference. It may be only a small difference to one or two individuals, but any

progress one can make is helpful.

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