Is It a New Meaning?

The article by the New York Times has made a revelation about the real life Huckleberry Finn. Although Twain shows him as a white kid, researches have seen that his way of speaking matches the one of a St. Pittsburgh black boy. The author of this article considers that this new discovery makes an impact towards the message Twain wants to transmit with his 1884 novel. 

Huck is the son of the St. Pittsburgh drunk. Thus, he has lived a life of insecurity and mistreating. His father goes missing every now and then. After Twain's first novel, The adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck is adopted by Widow Douglas who has an attempt to civilize and teach him the values of their society. Quotes such as "But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before." ( Twain, 233) show how Huck is uneducated and aware of societies misunderstandings, misleading and contradictions about what it's true values are.

I think this discovery will make the novel to gain more meaning and it's main theme about Racism to have more impact. During this whole adventure, Huck learned that Jim was not like society said he would be. Jim was actually he same as he was, he was not as horrible and dumb as Mrs.  Douglas told him he would be. Huck learned that Black and white are the same and should be treated the same, with Huck being based on a real Black boy Mr. Twain is simply reinforcing his idea.

In conclusion, we can see how Twain is sending a message to its future readers, saying that our values should be based on equality between races and that we must not contradict ourselves like his society did, that we must see each other as equals and that racism must not be a part of modern society.

Gabriela