Conduit, Tom Sawyer, life parallels to the …show more content…
He is illustrated physically as a man but mentally as a child. Twain uses this to emphasize the negative effect of slavery on African Americans. Terms like nigger are commonly used in the novel, but there is a distinct difference in the way they certain people use it. Some villagers in the novel use it with extreme negative connotation and prejudice, other adults use it as a way to establish authority over their slaves. To the contrary, children such as Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer who use the term because they hear others referrer to African Americans that way, but they don 't have and prejudice nor are they trying to use it to force someone beneath them. In fact, anytime they do use the term nigger in the novel the context is referring to something positive and or comical. Making the usage innocence in a sense. For example, Huckleberry Finn proclaimed “ Thats a mighty good nigger [Jim], Tom he likes me, becuz i dont act as if i was above him...sometime i’ve set right down and eat with him”(Twain 221). Both Huckleberry and Tom’s interaction with Jim is unusual for that period. While they do understand the fundamentals of the caste system which deems them higher than Jim they don 't think themselves as better people or Jim as a lesser