Perception of another race is the key, without it, Mary Rowlandson's would have no way of defining her Puritan race.
Mark Twain is able to define the changes in race by showing a boy who refuses to act as his white southerners and help free a black to slavery. Twain uses a small boy to show what the white human race is like without the corruption of society and slavery. Huck represents the pure nature of the human race before it is cultured and brain washed. Twain defines his race by showing what he is not. He does not believe in slavery, nor does he believe that it is morally right. Like the white race in his town, they are brought up to believe that taking a black slave away from his slave owner is morally wrong. Huck is able to fight through these dilemmas and decides for himself that taking the slave to freedom will not be wrong, and if it is wrong he says, "I"ll feel worse than I do now"(Norton 1329)." Twain is showing that an uncorrupted human, no matter the race will feel bad for turning in a runaway slave. Secondly, not only does Huck not see helping Jim escape as wrong, he does not feel that Jim is property like all of the southerners in America. Huck treats Jim as a human being and an equal person. He does fight with his conscious about these issues but in the end he is separating himself and defining himself by showing how he is not like the white southern race. He is able to show drastic changes in the same race if taken out of his corrupt society from where he lived. Huck Finn is not pro slavery but rather against the idea of slavery once taken out of the southern culture.
Ralph Ellison's story shows the stereotype of black Americans through the eyes of another race. In this case, he shows how the American population, the majority being white, portrays the black race in which they are really not. The events at the gathering are not or do not seem to be realistic.
