Wednesday, March 25, 2009
blog 6
Jim is something that is hard to define. I’m not sure how much of him is a stereotype meant to destroy traditional views and how much is mark twains own racist views. I’m not sure what to think of him as a character and it’s made all the harder by the fact that I can only understand a little of what he says. Whether or not he’s a minstrel I think is something only twain knows though I think he may very well be. As for whether or not he contributing to double consciousness I think he does because he show a very different view then what I believe many people perceive.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It’s the same for me! When I read about the words Jim has said, sometimes I just can’t understand what he is talking about. I only can try to understand him from the other part of the text. I also agree with you about that he is a minstrel. But I think it has the total different meaning of the characters in the minstrel show. In the show, the characters of black people just a way that the white people used to make fun of the black people. But for Jim, I think he has been used like a sign of slaves. He is used to show out the life of the slaves, and the meaning Mark wanted to show behind it.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of twain's thoughts, I think he was angry at American whites and took it out on them by creating a character of polar opposites. A dialect that is completely unintelligible combined with a character who has probably the best qualities of anyone in the story. Twain was lashing out, saying, "you stupid racists are too dense to understand what true human virtue really is, and he ridiculed (ridicules?) racist by placing the best of those qualities in the character that they consider the least likely to possess them.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that jim is someone that is hard to define simply because we havn't gotten that far into the book...but also because we don't know a whole lot about him until u work through the book. I agree the language is really hard to understand...so in many ways it's hard to understand him verbally but through his expierences his personality shines right through and you start to better understand who he is...Great response!
ReplyDelete