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“A Fiction of Law and Custom”: Mark Twain's Interrogation of White Privilege inAdventures of Huckleberry Finn
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“A Fiction of Law and Custom”: Mark Twain's Interrogation of White Privilege inAdventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Journal Article
“A Fiction of Law and Custom”: Mark Twain's Interrogation of White Privilege inAdventures of Huckleberry Finn
2017
Overview
Adventures of Huckleberry Finnis, this article argues, a novel that attacks the very premise of racial hierarchies through Twain's satirical presentation of those who so willingly endorse the practice of subjugating those of nonwhite races. Through a close reading of the text and an examination of Twain's own experiences with African Americans (and his writings about those experiences), it demonstrates how Twain uses various characters throughout the novel—including the widow Douglas and Miss Watson, Pap Finn, the king and duke, and others—to serve as negative examples of those who cling to racist ideologies. Reading through the lens of critical race theory, a new approach to teaching the novel as an attack on the foundations of racism emerges. In the end, this article argues that Twain was focused on dismantling the “fiction of law and custom” that he knew racial hierarchies to be.
