Solomon Allegory Criticism

Sloan's criticism of Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" centers around the King Solomon scene, in which Jim recounts a biblical passage, placing himself in King Solomon's place and using modern logic. Sloan asserts that "Only the author possesses this foreknowledge and can anachronistically employ it." (Sloan 4) as Jim's account of this parable is less important than why he understands it as he does. In reality, Jim's inability to understand the value of half a child represents the failure of halfway solutions to the problem of slavery versus freedom. More than that, Sloan believes that "Central to understanding the passage is the reoccurring motif of incongrous halver - half a story, half a child, half a dollar bill - all metaphors for the impossibility of praceling out justice and freedom." (Sloan 2)

As such, it is not simply Jim's interpretation of the Solomon story which carries such dark subtext, but the fact that Jim, as a slave, cannot see freedom in a federal court. It is the fact that even after the civil war, Jim would continue to face these incomplete solutions, no longer being sold, but being kept in debt economically and socially. It is the story if Jim's life which shines light upon the true meaning of the passage, and reveals why Jim seems so incapable of "getting the point." In reality, Jim knows his point, and is living in Twain's point, making Huck's point moot enough for him to explain "Doan' talk to me 'bout uo' pints, I reck'n I knows sense when I sees it" (Twain 95)

The scene isn't at all about Solomon's story, but rather the fact that "The pint, the real pint, is down furder it's down deeper. It lies in the way Sollermun was raised" (Twain 96) just as the real point of this passage lies in the way that Jim was raised.