The trial of Mark Twain was exceptional. The fact that he was being tried for racism made both the prosecution’s and the defense’s jobs’ rather difficult, as no one could be completely sure of Mark Twain’s beliefs besides himself. Both sides of the trial had an abundance of evidence and testimonies from witnesses supporting their side of the debate. All of the lawyers asked excellent questions, and spoke fluently and eloquently. The closing statements of both sides were very well written and convincing, and it was difficult to reach a decision on the verdict. The final discussion with my fellow jury members eventually opened my eyes to various parts of the trial, and helped me decide on my final vote of guilty or not guilty. My final conclusion was that Twain was indeed guilty of being a racist.
The prosecution made a good decision in emphasizing on Twain’s use of diction and word choice throughout his book to display his racism. The evidence they submitted about how Twain designed Huck’s speech around that of a young black boy that Twain came to know fairly well was particularly convincing for me. The prosecution expressed how although Huck’s speech was already quite similar to that of blacks during the book’s setting, Twain still made Jim’s speech distinctly less civilized than Huck’s, even though Jim was a grown man. His intent in doing this was to make absolutely clear how uneducated, uncivilized and unintelligent Jim truly was. Twain also made clear throughout the book how ignorant and naïve Jim’s character was through his thoughts and actions, and how easily the white Huck was able to fool him. Although it was not presented by the prosecution, one thing that came to mind was when towards the end of the book, Huck and Tom could have easily helped their “friend” Jim escape his bond of slavery at many points, but instead chose to make his rescue a source of entertainment and dragged on his confinement for much longer than it needed to last, without taking into mind how much Jim wanted to be free.
Another thing the prosecution often brought up to strengthen their case was Twain’s constant use of the N word in his story. They argued that even though the defense said Twain’s intent was to use the word satirically, it still offended blacks all around the country and many whites as well. The prosecution pointed out that Twain must have been perfectly aware that this would happen when he wrote his book. One thing that I took note of was a few of the defense’s weaker cases and pieces of evidence, especially their suggestion that if Twain made Huck a murderer, does that make Twain a murderer? The fact that they even bothered to mention something that was so obviously different from a belief in racism showed me the weakness of their case.
Something important that came up in the jury’s deliberation was the credibility of the defense’s witnesses. It was pointed out that Huck Finn was a young boy, who often used his skill at lying to get through his adventure in his book. Another point made towards Twain’s racism was the fact that although Huck made it clear he never followed what society influenced him to do, he still used the N word many times throughout his story. The defense’s second witness, the Duke, made his very living off of lying and deceiving people. It was true that his word could not be trusted. And the last witness, Mark Twain, would of course have said whatever necessary to be proven not guilty, and had the advantage of no one knowing what he truly believed but himself. The strong arguments made by the prosecution, supported by reliable evidence and witnesses, was what mainly swayed my final vote.
