Huck's "murder" is a tragedy that seems to shake his small town, so it does make sense that a crowd of people that were close to him were searching for his remains on the steamboat. However, wouldn't it make more sense, if they truly cared for him, to go looking at the shanty to see what they could find there? It is quite ironic that they did not do such a thing. They did not care to attempt to see if they could find remains there, or possibly save Huck if they were to find him alive. It would definitely be smarter for the crowd to search the area around the shanty as well as the surrounding waters.
The time period of which this novel takes place is, if it hasn't already been made obvious, a time when black individuals were inferior to white individuals, and they were typically enslaved. Since African-Americans were supposedly less important than white Americans, it would make sense that the award for a white man would be greater than that for a black man. This is not the case in this novel though, since the award for finding Jim is three hundred dollars, as opposed to the two hundred being offered for pap. This could perhaps be because people would rather have a black man behind bars than a white man, but it is still ironic. It is also ironic because pap is believed to be responsible for killing his son, while all Jim did was run away. One would think that the award for finding a murderer would be higher than that of a runaway man. Again, society would be happier having a slave behind bars than a free man. During this time the crime of a slave running away must have been a very severe act.
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