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Páginas de Interesse
- 19th Century American Literary Figures & Literary Texts Online
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in Gutenberg
- American Memory: Library of Congress
- American Transcendentalism Web
- Edgar Allan Poe Baltimore Society
- Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
- Mark Twain House and Museum
- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
- Searchable Sea Literature
- The Nineteenth Century in Print
- University of Virginia's American Literary Texts Online
- Voices of the Shuttle: American Literature
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4 comments:
Carolina Amaro
In “The Heroic Slave”, Frederick Douglass combines fiction and historical facts to portray Madison Washington in a way that directly challenges the racist stereotype of "ignorant negroes”, defended in this story by the character Williams. Douglass uses both narration and the development of scenes to demonstrate that Washington could not possibly fit into this role.
Through the narration, Washington is described as a “superior man”, courageous, intelligent, as an “exception of Williams’s rule”, “his words well chosen, and his pronunciation equal to any schoolmaster”.
He is also presented as someone with great character and motivation. His decision to escape slavery and later lead a rebellion aboard the ship shows a deep understanding of the injustice of slavery and a determination to fight for freedom, not just for himself, but also for others.
The author also uses dialogue and actions to prove the eloquence and capacity of Washington. For example, in Washington's interactions with other characters, he demonstrates leadership and persuasion skills, intelligence and the ability to plan. His capacity to express his thoughts through words and inspire others to follow his example.
All of this shows that he’s far from ignorant and being so, impossible to be considered part of the stereotype in question.
Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist and women’s rights advocate. The heroic slave, written by him, is a fictional account of Madison Washington and the mutiny aboard the Creole. He combined real-life events and fiction. At the time, most black people were slaves. They were denied access to education.
The reader can sense Grant’s hypocrisy when reading the story and thus the white man hypocrisy. What matters is not, in the end, is not how capable or eloquent or smart a person was but the color of their skin. Grant may disagree with Williams but even he says that “Mr. Williams speaks if ‘ignorant negroes,’ and, as a general rule, they are ignorant” (page 60) and that what happened was an exception to the rule.
Throughout the story, black people are described, for example, as rascals (page 57) darkies, black devil, darkies, coward (page 58) while the exception, Madison Washington, is described as “powerful, good-disposed negro” (page 60), “His words were well chosen, and his pronunciation equal to that of any schoolmaster”, “I forgot his blackness in the dignity of his manner, and the eloquence of his speech” (page 61), “I felt myself in the presence of a superior man (…) I could not bring myself to recognize their application to one whom I deemed my inferior” (page 63). Washington was knowledgeable, eloquent and had good pronunciation; he sailed “with the equanimity of an old sailor” (page 63); all things that a black person was considered to ignorant to learn.
However, one also needs to compare ignorance with stupidity. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, ignorance means “lack of knowledge, understanding, or information about something” while stupidity means “the state of being silly or unwise”. The fact that a person lacks knowledge while being denied access to education and the knowledge itself says more about the government than it does about a person.
Furthermore, it is unfair to consider what one might call superstitions as less legitimate knowledge. Chapter X of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn plays a bit with this theme. Huck assumes that Jim’s superstition means Jim does not know better. They had just come across a dead person which Jim said it “would fetch bad luck”. However, to Huck that sounds stupid, how can it be bad luck when they “raked in all this truck and eight dollars besides.”
Sources:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/stupidity
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ignorance
1. B) In Chapter X of Huck Finn, Huck’s thoughtless prank with the rattlesnake shows how human actions can be careless and morally flawed, which casts doubt on the idea that people have an innate moral sense. Huck’s behavior shows a lack of empathy about Jim, treating him as a target of humor rather than as an equal. The reliance on superstitions, like Jim blaming the bad luck on Huck touching a snakeskin, also shows how cultural beliefs are often stronger than rationality and morality, leading people to act based on fear or ignorance rather than compassion or reason. Like this, it aligns with Frederick Douglass’s critique in "The Heroic Slave," where he argued that society often corrupts any natural sense of right and wrong. Therefore, Huck’s prank reflects the moral failings of a society that dehumanizes people like Jim, showing that morality isn’t automatic but shaped by the values people learn. Only through reflection and real experiences, like the growing bond between Huck and Jim, can people develop true empathy and question harmful norms.
1B) To answer this interrogation it is crucial to define what "the innate moral sense of mankind" means, in the context of Twain’s book. The very conflict of the book is a flight for freedom from twisted moral values, since Huck’s innate moral sense keeps him from turning Jim in, from yielding to those corrupt societal values. On countless occasions Huck ponders if his path is the right one, but always opts for his innate moral compass and chooses to treat Jim not as a slave, but as a human, as a friend.
However, in chapter X, the episode of the rattlesnake seems to slightly tamper with this idea, as Huck pranks Jim for his own amusement, and ends up, although unwittingly, badly hurting him: “He jumped up yelling.” Is this behavior really any different from Miss Watson’s instrumentalization of Jim? Isn't Huck treating Jim like an object? One could infer so. Yet I choose to believe that this was the innocent mirth of a young man we have come to ask too much maturity of. We must not forget that, even if morally developed, Huck is still a child toying with a friend, and an accident does not dissolve all his growth in integrity and nobility. This, especially because when Huck realizes the gravity of his prank, he instantly resolves never to do it again, displaying some repent : “I made up my mind I wouldn’t ever take ahold of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it.”
Matias Castiel
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