#protoantiracism protofeminism slavery

[theeversocelebratedmarktwain]

‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’

Hello again all!

The latest readings we have conquered as a class has been Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck Finn is a best seller for Twain and is known as one of the all time favorite for being a ‘boy-book’. So, let’s dive in.

The book opens on the boy named Huckleberry Finn that readers have more than likely already met in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huck within himself represents the struggle of unlearning the doctrination that America was facing at the time. There was a lot of kickback, a lot of unsettled churches, and a lot of unhappy families to hear of a book holding a conversation about where America may had went wrong when it comes to the treatment of Black Americans. 

Now please, do not get me wrong. The book and Twain himself still holds on to harmful racist ideologies and stereotypes that are in this modern day painful to read, hear, and visualize. This is where my brain has led me to a crossway of confusion, understanding, mercy, and growth. I am just unsure in which direction I am coming from, and where I am going.

Last spring, I was in a survey course covering British and American literature. The specific week I am recalling, we were learning about the Tudors, King Henry VIII, his six wives, and so much more. [I assure you there is a point to this random storytelling-just stay. with me]. Within my lessons, I learned how one of King Henry’s wives aided his slaughter of a wife, when in turn she received power. The feminist within myself felt rage. Because in this day and time, progress forward is not progress is one had to step on the backs of women to achieve it. My teacher at the university blatantly reminded me of my privilege as a (white) woman in a country where freedom is given a lot more, with rights these women could never fathom of having. How my every day life may have struggles, but none of them struggles include fighting for my life and right to breath in a country rooted in tyranny. In this class she taught me the term as ‘protofeminism’. The googled definition of this word is “a concept that anticipates modern feminism in eras when the feminist concept as such was still unknown.” In this modern time, where I pass my judgement and my snarls at Mark Twain for his book that by the ends condemns racism, while still contributing to it- my brain is only understanding the picture from inside the frame.

My connection to Mark Twain this week is asking the questions: Is there a term called Protoantiracist? If there is, is this considered it? Is this America’s first work that asks the conversation to the table or not just slavery, but the oppression that we as a nation placed on entire ethnicity that we stole, raped, killed, and massacred from another land? Is Mark Twain the beginning of Protoantiracism?

By the end of the story, Huck Finn decides that the bond he has built with his friend Jim was worthwhile, and he did care about his livelihood. These feelings came from a genuine place within Huck’s heart because- as the naivety of child will have, he believed that caring for Jim meant condemning himself to Hell. Yet, he still made the decision to. Hence the infamous line titled this week’s title “All right, then, I’ll go to Hell”. 

Granted this world has developed into a completely different reality in this modern era, but it raises the question of what does Huck’s change of heart equal to in today’s world? I don’t believe it equals the work that should be done by white antiracists who use their privelege to guard the bodies of black Americans when a cop points a gun at them for having a black back pack and is on his knees. But what does it equal to? Or maybe I am looking at this text the wrong way. Did Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn make the way for other literature to know the path of going against the grain, of questioning their nation, or of testing the boundaries of our democracy. What was the impact of Huck Finn? Was this Twain’s intentions?

I am sorry to the readers who feel I should have answers to these questions. I, myself, still am trying to figure these out. In the meantime, more Twain content to be consumed.

Until next time,

Toni

#marktwain #huckfinn #protoantiracism protofeminism slavery