King Sollermun Criticism

Upon reading and analyzing the King Solomon criticism by Karen Sloan, i noticed that a lot of very in depth viewpoints and opinions were being stated. I began to see things that I never wouldve really noticed or taken much time in analyzing had it not been for the criticism or for my classmates various responses to their opinions and readings. My original jurisdiction regarding the King Solomon allegory was that the disputed child represented Jim(on a larger scale the mistreated blacks as property), King Solomon represented the stubborn postbellum society(southern whites in general--where the law of equality seemed to hold minor changes in lifestyles), the true mother, supposedly also a "prostitute" as the criticism defined it represented a free society for the blacks, and the fraudulent mother represents a society unreformed regarding a free nation where "all men are created equal." When comparing my personal opinions to the criticism and classmates, I found that it was very similar in ideals to Sloan's viewpoints, as well as a broad range of my classmates. In the book, King Solomon treated the child as property, and not one as a human being as Jim argued for. Huck on the other hand, was unable to see this viewpoint, and completely missed Jim's argument. Jim and Huck argue, "But handit, Jim, you'veclean missed the point--blame it, you've missed it a thousand mile....Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints. I reck'n I knows sense when i sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as dat. De'spute warn't 'bout half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole chile wid a hald a chile oan' know enough to come in out'n de rain. Doan talk to me bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back."(Twain 78). Technically, both are arguing very strong but different viewpoints. In my opinions, Jim his interpreteting this story through the black's perspective in society, where they are being shown no true freedom, but merely the halves of the story. "In fact or ficiton, a black person can be 'freed' without really becoming 'free'" (Sloan 4). "King Sollermun episode reveals Twain's perception that two decades after the Civil War 'liberty and justice for all' were still ... 'a fiction of law and custom'" (Sloan 5). Huck is merely seeing the literal moral of the story, saying that Solomon was simply a genius in his decision making. Jim naturally defends his claim, as the Solomon story to him, affects him in a very personal manner while to Huck it is merely another story "Jim vigorously defends himself when Huck accuses him of failing to understand King Solomon's wisdom" (Sloan 4).

Twain is stating through the character Jim that the government has been inconsistent in their actions toward equality, as the bias leans in favor of white men who are getting their ways with their properties(blacks), while the black slaves, who were guaranteed a path to freedom postbellum, have seen no obvious change. I agree with Lauren when she states Twain's argument is hidden behind the literal text. "The deceptively humorous tone of the passage and Jim's deceptively simplistic reasoning conceal a serious message.In the brief King Sollermun passage, Twain uses Jim's parody of biblical justice as an interpretive key to a modern-day parable of his own about the social and pyschological enslavement of blacks twenty years after the Civil War" (Sloan 3). Another argument that I found very interesting was the halves argument. Jim argues, "You take a man dat's goy on'y on or two chillen;is dat man gwyne to be wasteful o' chillen? No, he can't ford it....but take a man dats got bout five million chillen runnin roun de house, en its diffunt. Has soon chop a chile in two as a cat...a chile er two werent no consekens to Solomon." I agree with Michelle and Gina that it is very hard to catch this, and easy to simply take it as part of the Biblical story, instead of another tool Twain uses to clearly establish his stance--implying the fact that half a freedom is useless, just as half a baby or even half a dollar bill is. "Central to understanding the passage is the recurring motif of onconruous halves-half a story, half a child, half a dollar bill- all metaphors for the impossibility of parceling out justice and freedom."(Sloan 2). The idea that Twain gets across is that giving slaves freedom is worthless if split in half. He attacks the segregation that shamingly continued during the Reconstruction Era. I also agree with Gina's argument regarding the halves application to slaves in that society. Jim is seen as a fraction of society as well. Every 3 slaves counted as 5 people to the government as stated in the 3/5 Compromise. This idea of halves and fractions, help to show Jim's feeling of inferiority and worthlessness to the reader, and somewhat to Huck during this part of the chapter. This story also shows Twain's view of a corrupted America. He states, "Jim understands that "the real pint"-the one Twain wishes to make-"is down furder-it's down deeper calls to mind the plight of millions of enslaved blacks and opens the door to speculation that Twain truncates the biblical story for a profoundly antiracist reason." (Sloan 3). Jim is hurt by the fact that Solomon would even think about cutting the child in half because he's always been raised in an environment where they don't consider him a whole person.
Furthermore, I find myself agreeing with both the criticism's viewpoint on the Solomon chapter, and i also find myself seeing the connection betweein its views and my own interpretations...that Jim was analyzing a very personal and true connection between Solomon's decision and Americas actions.