If I were you, I would begin by thinking about this novel as an
excellent presentation of "The Other," which is a very important concept in postcolonialism.
Basically, the idea is that we define ourselves as the colonial power as essentially good,
liberated and civilised. Therefore the colonial people that we come to have power over are
"othered" into the position of being bad, ignorant and uncivilised. A series of binary opposites
is thus created to describe both ourselves and the way we define the colonial people in
opposition to ourselves. We can see this in operation in this excellent novel with the way that
slavery is presented, but at the same time we can see the way that Twain questions these easy
distinctions.
Throughout this novel, we are presented with a series
of characters who are seemingly very civilised and polite, who then talk about slaves as if they
were animals. A prime example is when Huck disguises himself as a girl and chats with the woman
in Chapter Eleven. Although she is very pleasant, kind and hospitable, she then talks about
sending out her husband to hunt down Jim as if he were a dog:
"After midnight he'll likely be asleep, and they can slip
around through the woods and hunt up his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he's got
one."
Then, we have the classic
example of Aunt Sally and Huck, who, when asked by Aunt Sally if anyone died, replies "No'm.
Killed a nigger." In both of these examples, we can see the way that slaves are presented as less
than human, and likewise the way in which Twain explores this process of othering. Aunt Sally is
shown to be a good Christian woman, just like the other woman in Chapter 11, and yet both show
themselves to lack compassion and understanding and moral superiority through the way they treat
slaves.
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