Say It Ain T So Huckleberry Finn Analysis

Smiley, an author of many books and magazine essays, writes her own criticism of Huckleberry Finn, “Say It Ain’t So, Huck”. Smiley has very strong arguments as she compares her own opinions and backs them up with Twain’s words from the book. Smiley argues that Twains real meaning behind the book is based off of racism. Twain never allows Jim to become a real human, as Jim will always be a slave whether he knows it or not. Although Huck and Jim end up creating a very strong relationship like brothers, Smiley believes that “Twain thinks that Hucks affection is a good enough reward for Jim” (Smiley 460). He would not ever get the treatment Huck did, and Jim’s character was never allowed to grow.
Smiley catches the audience’s attention as she recognizes the racist remarks that Twain uses through his character, Huck, and how he forms Jim’s character. Smiley says that, through the book, Twain creates Jim “more and more passive and never minds, just like any good sidekick” (Smiley 460). As Huck and Jim never cross the Mississippi to Illinois, a free state, Jim just stands in Huck’s shadows as he is along for the journey, never getting his own voice in the book to stand up for himself and his freedom. Through Smileys argument the reader could also take Jim’s character as Huck’s own slave. Smiley creates his argument and his main claim, “ Twain nor Huck

She looses the reader in her criticism, and it seems now the reader is learning more about Uncle Tom’s Cabin than the racist background of Huckleberry Finn. Smiley’s criticism was so strong and caught so many others’ attention because it had its own controversy against her own. This controversy was written by Justin Kaplan and is a good indication that Smiley got her point across in her own