In her book Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African American Voices, Shelley Fisher Fishkin claims that the voice of Huck Finn in Tom Sawyer’s most famous novel was based on a ten-year-old African American boy whom Twain wrote about in his 1974 New York Times article “Sociable Jimmy.” Fishkin claims that the voices of both Jimmy and Huck Finn are similar; therefore, she claims that Jimmy may have been the basis for the character who would later become Huck Finn (Guerin 332-4). However, after reading “Sociable Jimmy” and studying Twain’s background, I would argue that Huck Finn is less based on Jimmy than he is a reflection of Twain’s own upbringing. In this paper, I plan to do two things: examine the aspects of Mark Twain’s childhood that could have led to a blending of racial voices in his novel and compare Huck Finn’s voice with that of Jimmy as recorded by Twain.
Mark Twain was born Samuel Clemens in Mississippi in 1835. Mississippi, at that time, was a slave state, and Twain’s parents owned one slave, Jenny, who Twain later credited to have influenced his story-telling ability. While he was born in Florida, Mississippi, his parents moved him at the age of four to Hannibal, Mississippi, a town on the banks of the Mississippi River. Twain’s uncle also lived in Hannibal and owned seven slaves. It was at his uncle’s farm that he “spent many boyhood summers playing in the slave quarters, listening to tall tales and the slave spirituals that he would enjoy throughout his life” (“Biography”).
Examining only this portion of Twain’s background brings to light several interesting connections with Adventures ofHuckelberry Finn. First, Twain spent a large portion of his childhood listening to his family slave tell stories. The fact that he credited her with teaching him how to tell stories shows that he respected her. This is interesting when considering the relationship between Huck and Jim in Adventures of Huckelberry Finn. Huck struggles between his feelings of respect for Jim and the things he’s been brought up to believe about slaves; however, he always seems to find respect for Jim over what he’s been taught. For example, in chapter 15, Huck allows Jim to think that the events that took place over the night were a dream. Jim goes through every moment of the “dream,” analyzing different aspects of it. Finally, Jim realizes that it hadn’t been a dream as Huck had told him and becomes very upset with him. After Huck realizes how badly he’d upset Jim, he says “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger–but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him any more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d knowed it would make him feel that way (Twain 272).
Another interesting element of Twain’s childhood that relates to Huck’s voice is that Twain spent summers as a child in the slave-quarters of his uncle’s farm, and he dropped out of school after fifth grade (“Biography”). According to Fishkin, Huck’s dialect does not match that of the white dialect of that time and region (Guerin 332-4). However, Twain himself grew up surrounded by African Americans, and, having dropped out of school at such an early age, it is very likely that his own speech may have been influenced by his time spent in the slave quarters. Therefore, I would argue that it is just as likely that Huck’s voice was a reflection of Twain’s own dialect as a child as it could have been a reflection of the boy Jimmy that Twain wrote about in his New York Times article.
However, because Jimmy’s dialect in this article is much more similar to Jim’s than Huck’s, I would go even further to say that it’s more likely that Huck’s dialect was a reflection of Twain’s own. In “Sociable Jimmy,” Twain writes “I took down what [Jimmy] had to say, just as he said it — without altering a word or adding one” (—). If Huck was based on Jimmy, and Twain copied Jimmy’s stories word-for-word, then it seems that Jimmy’s and Huck’s dialogues would be similar. However, this is not the case. For example, there are a few words that are distinctly different between Huck and Jimmy; however, these are words that Jimmy and Jim share. Throughout the book, Huck consistently uses the words “the” and “them” (Twain). However, Jimmy consistently uses “de” and “dem” throughout “Sociable Jimmy (—). Likewise, Jim also consistently uses “de” and “dem” in place of “the” and “them” (Twain). Another example is in the absence of consonants at the end of words in Jimmy’s speech. Jimmy frequently leaves out the sound made by the consonant at the end of words, such as “don’,” “soun’,” “mawnin’,” and “jis'” (—). Huck rarely cuts his words short in dialogue, rather he tends to draw the syllables out in certain words and add consonants to others. Some examples of this include “hain’t” and “afeard” (253). Jim, on the other hand, frequently forgoes the inclusion of the last letters of words, such as “doan'” and “doin'” (260).
In conclusion, while I believe that Fishkin’s argument is interesting, I couldn’t find any information in my research that validated her claims. Instead, I found a lot of information that seemed to suggest more strongly that Huck’s voice was more of a reflection of Twain’s own upbringing and involvement with African Americans. Between Twain’s heavy exposure to the African American slave dialect in his youth, his lack of higher education, and the lack of resemblance between the voices of Jimmy and Huck, I would argue that Fishkin’s claims are interesting at best but not strong enough to prove with certainty that Huck was based on Jimmy.
Works Cited
“Biography.” 2004. The Mark Twain House and Museum. 15 Nov. 2006 .
Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. “Everyday Use.” A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 332-4.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn. New York:W. W. Norton and Company, 2003.
—. “Sociable Jimmy.” New York Times. 29 Nov. 1874. 15 Nov. 2006 .
