His Chains Are Gone Jim s Been Set Free - 950 Words

David Tripp Dr. Smith English 2 November 2015 His Chains Are Gone: Jim’s Been Set Free? The latter part of the nineteenth century saw civil war and the end of slavery in the United States. The post-Reconstruction years have been romanticized and popularized in the literary world and a nostalgic obsession followed those years of mayhem and political turmoil. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is one novel that has continued to make its literary mark, always controversial, to the curiosity of pre-civil war years of slavery in the South. Huckleberry Finn is an excellent study on Jim’s treatment as a commentary of post-Reconstruction life for African Americans. Reconstruction programs failed to give economic and legal†¦show more content†¦To understand the treatment of Jim, an understanding of white mentality must first be examined. Though blacks had been granted citizenship in 1870, southern white society still looked upon them as less than human without souls or feelings. Twain gives this popular opinion to the character of Huck before â€Å"the evasion† when he illustrates Huck describing Jim â€Å"He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn’t ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe was cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n. I don’t seem natural but I reckon it’s so,† (Twain 199). By chapter thirty-two, it is expressed again by Aunt Sally during her conversation with Huck upon meeting: â€Å"It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.† â€Å"Good gracious! anybody hurt?† â€Å"No’m. Killed a nigger.† â€Å"Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt,† (Twain 238) David L. Smith in his essay states â€Å"Huck has never met Aunt Sally prior to this scene, and in spinning a lie which this stranger will find unobjectionable, he correctly assumes that the common notion of Negro sub-humanity will be appropriate . . . intended to exploit Aunt Sally’s attitudes . . . A nigger, Aunt Sally confirms, is not a person,† (Smith 290-291). These passages reflect the view many held of