SOCIAL INJUSTICE IN A LESSON BEFORE DYING BY ERNEST J. GAINES AND IN THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN BY MARK TWAIN

SOCIAL INJUSTICE IN A LESSON BEFORE DYING
BY ERNEST J. GAINES AND IN THE ADVENTURES
OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN BY MARK TWAIN

EXPRESSION OF INJUSTICE 

The analysis will first encompass the issue of injustice through two domains: slavery and punishment. 

 SLAVERY 

It prevailed long ago about two centuries before the civil war in the United States of America. Slavery has been the source of many forms of injustice such as segregation and discrimination. Then the system is characterised by the superiority of a race on the other. The development of cotton and rice led the southern inhabitants in search of larger space to improve their agriculture. This new dealing brought the birth of the plantations and slavery finds the way to prove its importance. And it became lawful in the United States until December 1865. In countries such as Maryland, Delawere, Massachussets the plantations knew an intense activity with the arrival of the slaves. These latter were toiling all day long in difficult conditions. They were facing improper nutrition, unsanitary living conditions and they were overworking. The South knew a lasting period of slavery because of its impact on the economy. For instance, the cotton was considered to be a part of the regional economy of America. This source of profit has exacerbated the injustice and american literature has dedicated many writings in this question. Ernest Gaines in A Lesson Before Dying shows us that slavery is an unjust relationship and proves that white men use it to express their superiority to the blacks. Slaves couldn’t get closer to their masters. They had to use other doors to go through. It’s the case of Grant when he wanted to enter Pichot’s door. This reminds us the days of slavery. So in many circumstances, the Black had to take 6 distance from the White. The only occasions he could be close to him, should be on the white man request if not he is humiliated and punished right now. An important point of the manifestation of this injustice was the violation of the laws. The protagonist Jefferson is unjustly convicted of murder. Jefferson receives a trial not by his peers, but by his oppressors. According to the white, Jefferson is morally blank as a hog. He is therefore robed in his legal rights because he is black in a racist society. Gaines condemns this racist society. And Grant understands that in Louisiana’s society, a black man is guilty until proven innocent. This symbolises really the injustice of the slavery system because how can a person be guilty when in fact no judgment is done? When identifying Jefferson to a hog and a fool man, the whites discriminate the black communities and file them among the animals. Grant’s reaction in the opening chapter underlines sentiments of disappointments. “I need to go some place where I can feel I’m living” (L B D p29). This assertion teaches us that Grant is worn out because he lives in a racist time and place. Grant is really exhausted even if he physically exists, he does not feel his living. Slavery is an ironizing system with which white people minimized the black men’s civilization. Dr Joseph the superintendant uses it when talking to Grant the teacher: “you have an excellent crop of students, an excellent crop, Higgins” (L B D p 56). The boys are by the way considered as objects and this means that the black people are nothing but instruments. And that’s why slaves were used in any circumstances. They formed the workforce on the plantations owned by the whites. When a white woman gives birth to a child, the black woman obligatory takes care of him. The jails were also built to only condemn the blacks. They were led by the Whites, but Blacks rot them. These garrisons have unjustly played their role in the history. The life of the black men has mainly been a life in prisons than in society. Because sufficed it that he is 7 condemned, he will not escape the jail. It is an illustration of the discriminatory functioning of the justice. The laws are transcribed in favour of the Whites and their main objective is not to administrate rightly but to punish severely the black men. In this institution of slavery, white people display all their attention towards the blacks: “any sign of aggravation, I’ll stop all this” (L B D p81) said the deputy Paul Guidry. He controls all the food brought to Jefferson. Such behaviour signifies in other terms the distrustful acts the whites had with the Negroes. According to white men, Black men embody the devil. Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn goes in the same way than Gaines and proves the unfair practice of slavery. He takes the example of Huckleberry Finn who is enslaved by his father Pap. At a very young age, Huck is constantly locked in a cabin by his own father. It is the true practice of slavery to prevent the blacks from freedom and to impose them hard works. Pap keeps his son all the time for fear he runs away. One could think that the father loves his son but it’s the contrary. Pap is really a hypocrite man because Huck suffers much. Another characteristic of slavery was the division that the whites made between them and the black community. They often tried to destroy the identity of young slaves. Ben Rogers tells us that Huck has no family. Huck’s father is “a drunken man among the hogs in the tanyard” (A.H.F p7). The white man’s injustice toward the black community remains the bottom of this study through the character of Huckleberry Finn. Huck grows up in difficult conditions because he has a bad father who is very comparable to the animals and cannot care of the boy’s education. Huck became a tramp and is left to his own doing. Because of his childish experience, he will be unable to solve the numerous 8 problems he will meet during his adventures. Social injustice through The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn lays also the blame on the father’s carelessness. In his novel entitled The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman3 , Ernest J.Gaines makes a depiction of the slavery life of a woman named Miss Jane Pittman. The events related by the protagonist of the book, happened in her young age in the American South after the civil war. Through the character of Miss Jane Pittman, the author highlights the hard conditions of the African Americans in slavery and in the sharecropping plantations. The living conditions of the freed slaves and the violence which weighs on them are depicted through this autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Learning and political participation were forbidden to them by the plantation owners. This injustice is one among others because the interest of the slaveholders was to develop their plantations and so they had to keep the slaves in bondage as much as possible. And in her testimony, the narrator confirms this “it was slavery again, all right” (talking to Colonel Dye’s). In this description, Gaines shows us the manner which Pittman was discriminated in her identity. For example her master didn’t call her true name. In the sense of messing up, he called her by the name of “Ticey”. This disdain frustrates Jane who keeps on calling herself Miss Jane Brown. But unjustly her master beats her because of this name. The right to an identity is completely scorned by the reign of the force. Jane knew a hundred years of slavery and after her first release she resumed plantations. She is like an inmate who recurs and returns at the jail. At the difference that Jane is not guilty and has not chosen the way of the plantations but the masters obliged her to stay in. In Benito Cereno by Herman Melville, Blacks use irony to deceive the white men. Babo’s benevolence towards Benito is not sincere. He was just preparing a 3 Ernest J. Gaines, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, New York, Dial Press, 1971 9 blow. He said “my poor master, poor master wringing one hand and with the other hand wiping the mouth. But be patient senior. These fits will not last long; master will soon be himself”. Babo is acting like someone who really keeps affection for his master when in fact he is planning to kill him. The character of Atufal is a type to symbolise slavery “an iron collar was about his neck from which depended a chain thrice wound round his body, the terminating links padlocked together at a broad band of iron, his girdle”4 . And according to the servant Babo, Atufal is comparable to a mute in his displacement. The slave is silent and obedient and is distinguished with his chains. These chains in which he is enrolled demonstrate the lack of freedom for the black people. When the white men use the chains for the blacks, his objective is also to hurt them because the chains are heavy and are born by the slaves at every time. This reveals the Black men cleverness. They are capable of great deeds and can lead their own destiny. But unfortunately the white men have always denied this ingeniosity in Black men. And since the times of colonisation, the black community was considered to be uncivilised. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the author describes us the problem of identity that chocks Douglass. “My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant”5Douglass said. Douglass claims his lost of identity because he is deprived of her mother’s affection. Mother’s Douglass was domesticated by a Mr Steward. This signifies that she hadn’t any time to care for her children. The few occasions she could see him were very uncommon. And the meetings with her child were clandestine. They occurred at night. The white masters used all strategies to cut the link between the mother and her child. Whatever the scandal may be, the mother and the child had no possibility to communicate about it. In that way the child will lose his identity and all the 4 Herman Melville, Benito Cereno, Putnam’s Monthly, first published in 1855, p 159 5 Fréderick Douglass, The Narrative of the Life of Fréderick Douglass, New York, Dover Publication, 1845 p 15 10 relations with his family. It’s the case of Douglass who testifies “I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death or burial”6 . This is a cruel aspect of the slaveholding because the masters were not sensible to the slaves’misfortunes. The death which is a painful event because it marks the end of a soul didn’t sadden them. When minimizing the relations between the slave and his family it is a strategy for the Whites to divide the family and to show that Black men’s community is nothing. The policy to divide for better rule was sustained by the doctrine to divide so as to ignore the existence of the black race. It is still worth analyzing that slavery marks its injustice in all the sectors of the life. Education was concerned. The Negroes hadn’t the right to learn. And we have two cases to illustrate it. Douglas in his book testifies: “Mr Auld forbade Mrs Auld to instruct me further. It was unlawful as well as unsafe to teach a slave to read”7 . This assertion shows that the black men were supposed to stay in ignorance because knowledge is a tool to freedom. The whites avoid giving them the means to claim their liberty and to escape from slavery. Concerning the nutrition, the slaves were badly supplied. They only received their “allowance of food monthly”. This signifies that they starved all day long. The slaves were socially dead when deprived of the indispensable needs of life. They were skeleton-like and they had their clothes rarely: once a year. Owing to these bad living conditions which deprived him of his civil rights, Douglass became a fugitive slave. He was therefore like his mates, deprived of his rights. This violation of the civil rights put Douglass behind a legacy of social, intellectual, and political thought. It is a reason for him to undertake serious reformations to advocate the americans slaves’ freedom. And this ambition for a better living condition pushes Douglass to confirm that it is 6 Fréderick Douglass, Op.cit; p 16 7 Ibid. p 38 11 possible to promote the moral, social, religious, and intellectual elevation of the free colored people. . . to advocate the great and primary work of the universal and unconditional emancipation of my entire race. So Douglass erects himself as a defender of his race which deploys difficultly because of the brakes of the racism. As an engaged writer, he is ready to hold the dignified mission to see the black community evolving in its values and released from slavery. In I know why the caged bird sings8 the author Maya Angelou proves that she is also one of the true writers who developed ideas on the social injustice in American society. Named Marguerite Ann Johnson at birth she writes about her experiences as a black girl in the rural South and in the cities of St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Through subjects such as identity, rape racism and literacy Maya Angelou lets us know how the black people suffered of the White men domination. The issue of gender is also relevant because in new ways the author underlines the pains of the women’s life in a male-dominated society. The testimony that Maya did on her experience put the stress on the ill treatment by the Whites. Her description of being raped at an eight-year –old child is one of the many examples that we can quote here. The black race suffers much and Maya Angelou symbolizes this through two metaphors. She used the image of a caged bird trying to escape in order to denounce the racist oppression. The other image is that expressed by the rape. Mr. Freeman did it to Maya by molesting her sexually and later on rapes her. The writer shows us the determination of the Blacks to finish with injustice because the problem of Freeman and Maya went to the court of justice. Freeman was violently murdered and it might be one of the criminal associates of Maya’s family. In using images Maya aims to catch the attention of the reader on the problem of racism. This manner of doing enables her to signify the sufferings of the black people. She is 8 Maya Angelou, I know why the caged bird sings, New York, Random House, 1969 p159 12 motivated in writing about racism because the phenomenon is not justified and all the black people resent it. The author did it with a relevant style which depicts the defects of the problem. Indignities and terrifying lynch mobs are daily lived and expressed racism. Racial discrimination is widely manifested by many persons of the white community. Mr Edward Donleavy insults the black community and underlines their lack of means in this racist society. Edward has a racist expression toward the blacks and infuriates Maya. The employers such as Mrs. Viola Cullian have disdainful consideration towards the blacks. Cullian is a hypocrite southern white. She refuses to show his racism when in fact she plays segregationist behavior. She resents Maya to be called by her given name. It is another way used by the white men to reject Black men’s identity and to consider them as nothing. The refusal of the name is the mark of a humiliation that the White men have usually put on the black people. James Baldwin depicts the horrors of the racism through his book Go Tell It on the Mountain9 . The systemic racism produces insidious effects which constitute a licentious cycle of devils, result of the era of american slavery. This phenomenon went up from the virtually period of colonization to the American Civil War. We can take example on Gabriel and Florence whose mother was slave. This illustration shows us how the children are conditioned to follow the status of their parents in this institution of slavery. The report between blacks and whites is that of a subordinate group to another. And when this is legitimated, it usually steeped in arrogance and insensitivity. So the white people establish and propagate irrational delusions of righteousness and natural superiority. The principle of this domination is not in fact based on true values and ethics but in false conviction. Unfortunately this instills delusions of superiority that the white man sustains as moral or ethical truths. This suffering 9Cf. James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, New York, Knopf, 1953 13 in the South brought to black men’s migration towards the North. Because the black people hope to meet better conditions of life in escaping to the racism based on a philosophy that one group of people is socially, genetically, and intentionally superior to another. This subordination is not justified but simply rooted on economical status and infects both the victims and the victimizers. Baldwin demonstrates this effect of racism in each of his major characters. Consider, for example, Florence’s aversion to blackness; she uses skin whiteners which are symbolic of self hatred, and she dislikes « common niggers, » a symptom of a racist cataloguing within the race. Or consider the sadly casual explanation of how Rachel who is Florence and Gabriel’s mother, had lost her other children. They had been taken from her, one by sickness, two by auction. Besides there was one whom she couldn’t recognize as her own child because she had been raised in the master’s house. In the two main characters, John and Gabriel, Baldwin shows the effects of racism most vividly. John is the central character in the main plot. In this part, John is shown in his evolution, maturing physically and religiously; Gabriel figures most prominently in its major theme are the tragic effects of racism on a people and a society. Each is the product of his environment, and each reflects the debilitating nature and consequences of the racism in his environment. The views of John and Gabriel regarding racism are polar opposites. John is still a child, naïve and inexperienced; Gabriel has suffered the realities of his subordinate position in a racist society; he is embittered, hardened, and defeated. While John recalls the kindness of a concerned teacher when he was sick, Gabriel can think only of injustices that African Americans endured where he grew up and where he lives. Gabriel proclaims whites to be wicked and untrustworthy, warning John that, when he is older, he will find out for himself how evil they really are. John has read about racism and the injustices and tortures that blacks had endured in the South, but he has experienced none of 14 these things himself. Because John has had no overt negative experiences with whites that’s why he couldn’t understand the problems of Gabriel and the others who felt themselves burning in hell forever. John, of course, is not without racist attitudes. In fact, John illustrates the most tragic and insidious variety of racism: racism directed against one’s own people and hence oneself. While disparaging the compliments of those of his own race, John revels in the fact that he has also been singled out for praise by whites. Baldwin writes that John was not much interested in his people. He hopes that the colored people had not to praise John because they couldn’t. John felt in any case really known and loved by the Whites. They often appreciated him as a very bright boy. And this vision from the white people makes him in the dreams of a new life opening up. But we can see how John is perverted by the racism for he even rejects to be someone useful for the black community. That’s why when his neighbors told him that he would be a great leader of his people, he was shocked and unmoved. The essays mostly tackle issues of race in America and Europe. In The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro and the Civil War and Reconstruction10 by James McPherson, the author shows that many abolitionists did not retreat from Reconstruction, as historical accounts frequently lead us to believe, but instead vigorously continued the battle for black rights long after the Civil War. Numerous Blacks were still in the institution of slavery that’s why the position of many leaders like Lincoln was to free the black slaves. The battle for the equality of races went on because despite the promulgation of the 13th amendment on December 18th 1865, slavery was still practiced by a majority of Whites. The reconstruction era wanted to restore black men dignity because 10 James M Mcpherson , The Struggle For Equality : abolitionists and the Negro and the civil war and reconstruction, Princeton University Press, 1965 15 neither slavery nor any form of unwillingness servitude was allowed by the 13th amendment in the United States. The injustice of the white people appeared in many forms and concepts. White men refused black men’s emancipation by creating laws known as black codes. These laws were inhuman because they limited black people’s liberty and returned them to servitude condition. So Blacks still segregated from Whites and their rights always neglected. Tracing the activities of nearly 300 abolitionists and their descendants, James Mcpherson reveals that some played a crucial role in the establishment of schools and colleges for southern blacks, while others formed the vanguard of liberals who founded the NAACP in 1910. The author’s examination of the complex and unhappy fate of Reconstruction clarifies the uneasy partnership of northern and southern white liberals after 1870, the tensions between black activists and Whites. The renowned Civil War historian James McPherson offered an important and timely analysis of the abolitionist movement. In his narrative, he stresses on the individual efforts that characterized the movement. James McPherson draws on letters and anti-slavery periodicals to let the voices of the abolitionists express for themselves their triumphs and anxieties. Asserting that it was not the abolitionists who failed in their efforts to instill the principles of equality on the state level but rather the american people who refused to follow their leadership, McPherson raises broad questions about the obstacles that have long hindered american reform movements in general. This problem of unity in the oppressed people has also favored the white men’s hardships because they have not met true resistances from others social groups. The myth of the superiority of the white race has undermined the black men’s efforts for the abolition of slavery. 16 The white man was seen in a very particular way by the black man. He was not touchy because the devils as handicap, illness, and suffering are for the black man but not for the White. This conviction had taken time and only the circumstances like the world wars had edified the black man of the white man’s vulnerability. For during these events, Blacks had seen Whites physically handicapped, blind Whites and others tortured by their enemies. Since then, the black community dared manifest courage in front of the Whites. We want simply underline that the sentiment of fear that the black man had on the White has increased the social injustice he suffers. Among these writers interested in the depiction of the social injustice, we can also name the Frenchman Frantz Fanon. In his book Black skin White mask, the author develops the need for the Black men’s recognition. This must involve the black community in a battle against the White men’s racism. Because Blacks are put in isolation through laws discriminating them. The oppressors have created a system of laws and customs known as Jim Crow laws which reinforce the racial segregation and the discrimination against Blacks. In fact this separation is not justified for the South is in large majority enslaved (95%). Despite all this the Blacks were separated at schools, hospitals, public places…from the white people. The use of stereotypes is a process which enabled the author to make a descriptive phenomenology of the race. It’s a pejorative consideration that the White man has on the black race through a series of synonymous words to distinguish the black persons among them Creoles, Mullattoes and the white persons. The French word nègre or noir is translated in the English words “black/the black man”, “negro or nigger”. The white user of these terms tends to eliminate the affective charge or the rhetorical use that the words Negro and nigger could respectively embody. These disdainful words show us clearly the full meaning of the racism, a doctrine depending on the color of the skin. 17 Consequently, the true objective of Frantz Fanon is holding a fight for freedom in the rural South. He asserts: “when there are no more slaves, there are no masters”11. The author underlines the report between masters and slaves so as to prove that the practice of slavery is linked to the possibility of the Whites to take black people as slaves. That’s why a combat against social injustice must put the stress on the eradication of the slaveholding. The author notices also the dilemma of freedom with acuteness, due to the strict evolution of racism and calls for the unity of the american people. So the United States are expected to be particularly “a Nation of Nations”. Distinguished writers have produced critical works on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. That is the case of Shelley Fisher Fishkin in his book entitled Was Huck Black?Mark Twain and African American voices. Fishkin Shelley underlines the importance that Mark Twain gives cultures and traditions in the conception of the terms black or white. The meaning given by the author draws its roots in these beliefs. This process used by the author is criticized by Fishkin who estimates that Twain should not rescue to it consistently or consciously. According to Fishkin’s criticism, Twain in his description of Jim made contradictions. In fitting Jim in the habits of the old times known as minstrel traditions, Twain showed how the black men were ironized in their speech and manners. Whereas in the other hand, the author reveals humanity through the character of Jim. This literal device is relevant in some ways because it enables Twain to prove the ambiguous character of the black man. Ellison Ralph put the stress on the character of Jim in “Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke” Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. An authoritative text backgrounds and sources criticism. Ellison shows how Mark Twain 11 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin White Masks, France, Editions du Seuil, 1952, p 194 18 characterizes Jim in the “minstrel tradition” where he is rejected with his Negro slave dialect and his mind full of superstitions. And even Whites played theatrical productions, blackened their face so as to mess up the black people. Twain made a negative vision on Jim in such a manner that parents resented the teaching of the texts on Jim. However the description on Jim playing a central role in the novel reveals a difference in his status. Because Jim demonstrates here that he has feelings and emotions and awakens humanity in Africans Americans. Though Ellison Ralph criticizes the fact that Twain proves humanity in the character of Jim, it was important to show that black men constitutes a community which exists and has desires and feelings. The expression of humanity in individuals is part of what we can call the essence in human being. That’s why Mark describes us the meeting of Jim and his friend Huck after a separation on the river. The two boys are very happy to see each other “hello Jim, have I been asleep? Said Huck. Why didn’t you stir me up? Jim is full of joy and this expression of feelings was hidden by the minstrel mask. Ellison Ralph confirms this deceitful character of the mask “the function of the minstrel mask, the black-faced figure of white fun repress the white audience’s awareness of its moral identification with its own acts and with the human ambiguities pushed behind the mask”. In Redemption According to Ernest Gaines-A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, David E. Vancil testifies the long time Gaines did in writing his book A Lesson Before Dying. It took to Gaines almost ten years to finish his novel and most of the time he were on the places of San Francisco. According to David Vancil, this book by Gaines is a masterpiece and it is the best production in Gaines’ career. Vancil justifies also the reasons why Gaines has written the book. The grounds are explained by the demands and ironies of Gaines’ time. So Vancil sees that the theme of the book is relevant. 19 David Vancil focuses also on the style used by Gaines. We can quote the use of the first person narrator that Vancil sees not admirable but complex. The kind of Grant is conscious and has a critical mind. Vancil notes also the presence of many ironies in the Christian stories of redemption and those of Christ and morality plays. This strategy is a way to mess up to others so as to make them realize of their mistake. Vancil estimates that the ironies are well used in the book because they are bitter, humorous,tragic and comic. Thus readers can be more interested to read Gaines’s book. In comparing the use of ironies in the previous works to that of A Lesson Before Dying, Vancil states that the number is more important in the later and Gaines did it in none of his work. He also appreciates the link between the themes and the literal device with ironies. Because in a racially society, individual matters and that of group identity are brakes for the promotion of the communities. They must be evoked with true mechanisms enabling their impact in societies. The novel gives an easy reading and understanding. The content relates morality in its social and individual aspects. Therefore simplicity exits in the novel and Vancil said that there is nothing funny or forced in it. Owing to all these qualities in this masterpiece, David Vancil accepts the aura of authenticity that it creates in the domain of literature. In his Review of A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J.Gaines, Anissa Janine considers that A Lesson Before Dying is the winner of the National Books Critics Circle Award. Janine explains the way through which Jefferson is accused and condemned by the white men. He has also shown us that the meetings between the prisoner Jefferson and the teacher Grant were not easy because of Jefferson’s refusal to speak or to acknowledge Grant’s presence. Janine accepts that Gaines is a talented writer because he succeeded in settling a poignantly dialogue between the two men. A Lesson Before Dying according to 20 Janine is a true lesson. In fact Jefferson taught the community that the individual deeds are meaningful and must take place before the societal changes. The language takes an important place in this society where Black men are easily enslaved and the rights for freedom scorned. The role played by the language in the novel A Lesson Before Dying is well appreciated by Anissa Janine. The case of Jefferson illustrates this idea. With the teaching by Grant, Jefferson writes in the journal and is able to feel humanity through the writing.

PUNISHMENT

 It can be defined as the sanctions used against the black slaves. This punishment was unjustified. It depended only on the temper of the master and took many forms: whippings, deprivation of food, intimidating, locking up, murder, jail and so on and so forth. When analysing A Lesson Before Dying, Gaines put the stress on the pains that Jefferson is stoically bearing. The trial lets us know that to punish Jefferson the court condemns him and sentences him to death penalty. However Jefferson is not guilty. We can simply say that he is punished because of the colour of his skin. The objective of the white in condemning this man is really directed to all the black people. In other words, Jefferson is used as a scapegoat. For the white, “Jefferson is nothing but another nigger-no dignity, no heart, no love for people” (L B D p191). And we can see that the persons who were running the jail, took all the precautions to make him suffer and to avoid that he escapes. “Jefferson is locked in that cage like an animal” (L B D p182). Chuckled in his hands, he behaves like a hog. But consequently his step mother miss Emma is frustrated “I didn’t raise no hog, and I don’t want no hog to go set in that chair. I want a man to go in that chair Mr Henri (L B D p 20). This label regarding Jefferson as an animal is one of the harsh punishments that Jefferson could put on. Because, he loses all his dignity and through him it’s all the black community‘s civilization which is stammered. In this assertion of Miss Emma, we notice a feminine resolution to 21 free Jefferson. Nowadays this willing continues because women are in many estates engaged in the battle for equality and liberty. Jefferson is prohibited to eat and he feels dead “manner is for the living, food is for the living too” (L B D p 130). And for the few occasions he is supplied, the food is strictly controlled. Paul Guidry “went through all the food, unwrapping one piece of chicken, cheeking it, putting it back” (L B D p 81). This behaviour of Paul Guidry translates the mistrust and the disrespect of the white toward the black. It is also important to underline that the regularity of the punishment relies on the arbitrariness of the laws. “Twelve white men say a black man must die other white man sets the date and time without consulting one black person (L B D p157). There is no justice and a black man can’t be right in this society of Louisiana. It’s the same case in Douglass’ society “to be accused was to be convicted and to be convicted was to be punished. To escape punishment was to escape accusation” (L B D p 256). Consequently we can say that blacks are liable to be punished. Blacks were sanctioned by inhuman methods which characterise the system. We can evoke the electric chair. It teaches us how the white’s system was violent and that racism was very frightful. When someone was to be executed, the chair was driven in a truck and held the attention of the people whenever the truck goes through. It was much feared because of the sort of execution. Jefferson will not escape it (L B D p 256). Henry Vincent the executioner ordered Paul that “Murphy must shave the prisoner everywhere; electricity sometimes found hair that the naked eye would never see” (L B D p 243). The use of the term “everywhere” is bungler for the human body. This signifies that the punishment was even done in the intimate parts of the human being. The peak is reached because the black man’s body is put entirely naked. The white man shows that he has no respect for the black because he 22 manipulates his sexual parts savagely. The circumstances the master and the slaves passed in the plantations show the same acts of torture. Putting them naked, the masters beat in the intimate parts of the slaves. The white often sabotages when he punishes his slaves. And after the execution of Jefferson, we can hear Paul Guidry saying to Grant “tell them he was the bravest man in that room today. I’m a witness Grant Wiggins” (L B D p 256). This assertion only aims to hurt the sentiments of Jefferson’s family. Because when using the word “bravest” it’s not to congratulate but to mess up. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark describes the sufferings of Huck that his father usually punishes. He isolates him and beats him. This creates a great fright on Huck “I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much” (A H F p 14). The relation between pap and Huck is not therefore that of fatherhood but based on the servitude. The father has no affection for his son. The punishments of pap concern Huck’s education too. Pap forbids Widow Douglass to teach Huck for the reasons that the parents of the boy were not instructed “your mother couldn’t read and she couldn’t write” (A H F p 14). It’s a way to refuse the liberty for the slaves because education is a key to freedom. By the learning, the slaves could challenge the whites. Learning is one of the best ways to understand the world. The sources of knowledge are around us but you must be instructed to know how to read and interpret them. By the way, you chose information you need to develop strategies in the sense of your objectives. The quest of knowledge should constitute a challenge for the black man because he has been at every time considered by the white man as savage. Besides Huck had no opportunity to enjoy himself. The slightest toy he could have in his hands was snatched by his father. For instance pap takes him off the little blue and yellower picture he had and tore it up. Pap couldn’t also accept Huck to have coins with him. Hardly had he started explaining the use he wants 23 for his single dollar that pap cried on him: “I don’t make no difference what you want it for-you just shell it out” (A H F p 14). The father is in fact hypocrite and is note at all motivated by educational reasons. After he had received the money, he left the boy and said that he was going down town to get some whisky. Moreover one could think that pap loves Huck in keeping him with all the time. But it is quite different. It’s nothing but a punishment by forfeiture of freedom. The child witnesses here this fact “he kept me with him all the time and I never got a chance to run off” (A H F p 19). The conditions of work in the farms were so strict that the suffering slaves could hardly escape. The masters organised the farms like the prisoners’ cells. They didn’t want to give the slave any chance of escaping when they punish them. Then many slaves died in the fields. Fathers’ irresponsibility is evoked many times by the author. It permits us to underline the injustice into the black community but it is more dangerous when it prevails in the relations between father and son. Only the behaviour of Pap toward Huck is special. It is due to the fact that he is not his real father and this kind of attitudes towards the boys is very frequent. We can see it in the families of the adopted boys. The parents well bread their true children but mistreat the others who are not their own. Huck’s father had high injustice toward his child because he wanted to educate him at his image. Even the good attitudes of the boy offended him. “He cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him” (A H F p16). The adage “such a father, such a son” is the report that Pap embodied for his son. But unfortunately Huck is an innocent child and has nothing done to deserve the application of the adage. His uncompromising behavior incited Huck to rob and to borrow money from the others. These are bad examples that one should not educate on his children. Huck underlines his father’s severity “He said he’d cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn’t raise some money for him.” Besides the old man recognizes that he is a worthless individual and accepts to be comparable to the hogs.  Talking about his hand, he said « Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it. There’s a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain’t so no more” (A H F p17). This shows that he has no respect of his person and does not deserve the white men’s deference. Another runaway slave for having much suffered of punishment is Jim. Not only the masters use the whippings or the jail to punish the black slaves but got rid of them by selling them vile to other masters. And here Jim confides in to his mate Huck: “well, you see it’uz dis way. Ole missus—dat’s Miss Watson— she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn’t sell me down to Orleans” (A H F p 38). The refusal of the masters for the slaves’ education is confirmed by Douglas in The Narrative of the Life of Frederic Douglas. Mr Auld forbade Mrs Auld to teach Douglas because “it was unlawful”. Thus we notice that the injustice which black people was victimised was legalised by the law. The claiming of human’s rights at the court of justice for the improvement of black men social conditions was not expected. When Mr Auld asserts that teaching a slave could make him discontent and unhappy, he proves that it’s only with spitefulness that black men were not allowed learning. They were punished to reach the way of knowledge. In the Narrative Douglas underlines that the masters were uncompromising on the slaves’ discipline. And the bad attitudes of the slaves were strictly sanctioned “Mr Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul and spirit” 14Douglas said. When we consider the essential of the human body, we can say that Douglas was hardly alive because he was affected in his intrinsic parts. In the medical field, these ill treatments are often followed by internal haemorrhages in the individual.