Jon Clinch

Mark Twain was way ahead of his time in much of his writings. Though he didn’t flat-out say it, early in the novel, Twain sent the reader the message that the color of your skin is not what makes you a good or a bad person. Huckleberry Finn’s father, Pap, is hands down the worst man in Huck’s town, yet ironically he feels the need to hate on every black person that walks by. Twain shows his hidden opinion to the reader in the way that Pap talks about the black professor who had visited their town… “Here’s a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet’s got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a-hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger….” (38)