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Social Power Lens In Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

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The book assigned was Huckleberry Finn and it was written Mark Twain. Huck Finn is thirteen year old boy who starts off in the beginning of the book living with The Widow Douglas who tries to get him civilized and proper. Then his dad comes to town and kidnaps him in a cabin out in the woods. Huck eventually escapes he meets a black man on Jackson Island and they go on many adventures. The social power lens can be applied to this book a lot because there are a lot of social inequalities.. When viewed through the social power lense the book Huckleberry Finn shows the reader that there are many different ways people were classed in many different ways like race, age and wealth.
One of the biggest examples of social power in the book is race. …show more content…

Huck Finn has things in common with the slaves because of his age. He is vulnerable and doesn’t have much say in things unlike an adult. In the book his father wants custody of him and the new judge in town grants it over him living with the Widow Douglas and Judge Thatcher even though his father is an alcoholic and abusive because he is a kid and is seen as property in a way like a slave. Another way age relates to the book and the social power lense is Huck’s father gets mad because Huck is going to school and learning to read and has a fortune. He says “I’ll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better’n what he is.” This means he doesn’t want Huck to be better than him because he is his son. One more example of a social power lense in Huckleberry Finn is wealth. This can also be related to race. If you had a lot of money it didn’t matter what your skin color was you had more power and you didn’t have to be owned as a slave.. In the book Jim talks about how he is rich. "Yes-en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no." (pg. 52) Another example of how wealth comes into play is Huck’s dad. He is poor, illiterate, homeless and is seen very low and almost as a second class citizen by the

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