Episode+From+Book+p4



"Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like. Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him -­ a man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for HIM and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call THAT govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what the law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio -­ a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane -­ the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State. And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the wust. They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin. Them's the very words I said; they all heard me; and the countgood and all. Yes, and I TOLD 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two cents I'd leave the blamed country and never come a-near it agin. Them's the very words. I says look at my hat -­ if you call it a hat -­ but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below my chin, and then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint o' stove-pipe. Look at it, says I -­ such a hat for me to wear -­ one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights. "Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govmentry may rot for all me -­ I'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger -­ why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says to the people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold? -­ that's what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the State six months, and he hadn't been there that long yet. There, now -­ that's a specimen. They call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he's been in the State six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and-"


 * __Significance__**

This monologue criticizes the American system, but what is really being criticized by Mark Twain is family and racism, as well as how even free people are always ready to be enslaved. The monologue is used to show that racism is always an issue in America’s daily life and that government is an easy scapegoat. It was most likely hoped by Mark Twain that this speech by Pap would change people’s bigoted views. Pap is the perfect example of a terrible parent who wants his child to be lesser than himself and didn't care for Huck until there was money involved, then he became a devoted and loving father. From the monologue, the mulatto is free and remains so until he has lived "there" for six months. His status, being higher than Pap, and his color, and ability to vote generates jealousy towards him. These are the segregational problems within America and the south.

In the south there are basically the rich plantation owner's, lesser farmers, and poor whites. The Blacks are thought of as born slaves, preordained by god to be so. The plantation owner's were the only ones that could afford a real education for their children, and the lesser/poor whites were envious and hateful of the plantation owners. That is why the mulatto and Huck are causes for Pap to be angry and want vengeance.

The critical and satirical book, Huck Finn, was a way to open people’s eyes to what the terror of America’s racial separation and indifference toward voting had created. The book soon became a classic that people read, and by doing so was able to change society in the following years.