Thursday, February 7, 2008

King Solomon

I think the most important part of the interpretation is the part that Jim cannot understand the concept of Solomon as a bringer of justice because he has never experienced that. Jim's interpretation of Solomon is caused largely by the fact that society has never treated him in a way that would allow for him to be treated fairly. This prevented Jim from seeing Solomon as a wise man and caused him to look at the biblical hero as a fool. The fact that Huck has experienced justice and has been helped by the law allows him to understand the complete story, so in the end the two characters’ interpretations of the same story shows the difference in how society treats them and shows the difference in the risks that they have taken, even if the last several weeks have seemed to create a lot of similarities between them. The fact that Jim is much more reluctant than Huck to have anything to do with the ship shows that the underlying conditions of his escape are much more dangerous than Huck’s due to his status as a runaway slave. I agree with the idea that Huck is the one that missed Twain’s point, even if he is the one that understands the true biblical message. As stated in the passage from Sloan, Twain is trying to create a message relating to his society.

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