The Power of Language in Huckleberry Finn

Abstract

Huckleberry Finn is a very controversial novel, and has made some disagrees between the readers. Most of the issues are concerned with the way Jim is portrayed. The novel deals with the issue of racism as an ideology and a cultural phenomenon. Jim is a character who is inferior, passive and dehumanized through many ways, like the way he uses the language and the way he behaves. The language is used to represent the black Jim as a subject of the racist ideologies of his time. The message that the writer tells us is that although he is a white he fights for the right of the slaves and the persecuted class of the society. Twain creates characters that are imprisoned by their social milieu. Huck, Jim, and the society as a whole are entrapped within the confines of the existing slave system and the other entrapments of culture, most notably language. Huckleberry Finn is dialectic in that Twain uses the language against itself. The controversial nature of Twain’s subject necessitates the reader’s full awareness of Twain’s use of irony, language, and point of view in Huckleberry Finn.

Keywords

• Huckleberry Finn,Nigger,Language

References

1. Bridgman, R, (1966). The Colloquial Style in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Burchfield, R. W, (Ed.). (1986). the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Clemens, S. L., & Long, E. H, (1977). Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (S. Bradley & R. C. Beatty, Eds.). New York : Norton.