![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() While he focuses more critically on his socio-cultural sketch of the antebellum South through the lens of a naïve young white narrator, Twain almost forgets that he once created one interesting black character, Jim, only showing him randomly to the readers during Huck’s journey on the Mississippi.Īs a critical response to Twain’s neglect, Nancy Rawles imaginatively rewrites Jim’s story and critically responds to Twain’s fragmentary portrayal of Jim and other black characters in her 2005 novel, My Jim. Twain’s controversial rendition of Jim and his neglect of other black voices is thus problematic, especially when they are once created within the story. The black voice, whether it is Jim or other almost non-existent black characters, is too often unseen and unheard in his story. Although it is often neglected by Twain scholars, I argue that Twain’s narratological tactic of intentionally avoiding direct references to legal and political issues of the antebellum South with regards to slave capital and the slave trade is to be under criticism. Mark Twain scholarship has extensively discussed race from the (failed) inter-racial friendship between Huck and Jim to racial injustice to white privileges since the publication of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1884. ![]()
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