According to the article Blackface Minstrelsy, a blackface minstrel show proposed the idea of laughing at the things black people do. White people dress up as black people and they "imitated or caricatured slaves". Since its beginnings in the nineteenth century it became a huge success and many people liked these kinds of shows. Mark Twain was also a big fan of these shows. If such kinds of shows were put on today it would be considered discriminatory and offensive. Laughing at the mistakes and ways of thinking of other cultural groups used to be normal, but currently it is considered as racism. I certainly wouldn't like to be laughed at just because of my culture and other cultures shouldn't deserve this humiliation.
The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn could be considered a minstrel show since most of the humorous parts laugh at something Jim did or says. Jim's beliefs are also mocked as well as his cultural backgrounds. According to Jim: "Ef you's got hairy arms en a hairy breas', it's a sign dat you's agwyne to be rich" (Chapter 8). Then he tells us how he used to have fourteen dollars and invested them to become rich, but ended up with nothing. I thought this part was funny because he made really dumb decisions when investing, as well as believing that just for having lots of hair a person would be rich. The intention of this chapter is to laugh at Jim's cultural beliefs as well as his mistakes. I think this book portrays a recreation of a minstrel show. Mark Twain probably didn't do this book with that intention since he disagreed with slavery, but in the time he wrote it minstrel shows were a big source of entertainment as well as what he wanted his book to be.
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