The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Lucy the Marshwiggle

Lucy the Marshwiggle

New member
For my English class this year, we read The Adventures of Huck Finn by Mark Twain. We had an open discussion with the class and many people thought that the book was racist and that Mark Twain was racist because of a certain usage of a word (which I will not say because this is a family friendly forum). What is your opinion? Do you think Huck Finn is a racist book given the times in which the book was written in? Should Huck Finn be banned from public schools or should kids be forced to read it? I would like to see what others think about this.


--Lucy
 
The whole line that Huck Finn is racist is a modern crock promoted by people who neither read nor are able to understand stories. The use of the term "nigger" in the story is simply the way people talked back then - it essentially meant "black fella" to the people of the time. Those who think Twain was a racist need to read the book - and get past their parochial mindset to look at what Twain was saying. Jim is the most touchingly human character in the entire story, portrayed with nobility and depth that was simply stunning for the time. Even Beecher Stowe, who did a creditable job of bringing blacks to life in Uncle Tom's Cabin, wasn't able to make them as sympathetic as Twain did with Jim. The entire book, besides being a literary masterpiece, was a giant swipe at racism. By bringing Jim alive on those pages, Twain was able to get his readers to see blacks as many of them never had before: as human beings just like everyone else.

Here's an interesting article on it, surprisingly, from PBS. It contains a Hemingway quote that I wanted to provide, but I thought a link would be more useful. To have people dismiss it as "racist" simply because it uses the dialect of the time is shallow ignorance.
 
PrinceOfTheWest said:
The whole line that Huck Finn is racist is a modern crock promoted by people who neither read nor are able to understand stories. The use of the term "nigger" in the story is simply the way people talked back then - it essentially meant "black fella" to the people of the time. Those who think Twain was a racist need to read the book - and get past their parochial mindset to look at what Twain was saying. Jim is the most touchingly human character in the entire story, portrayed with nobility and depth that was simply stunning for the time. Even Beecher Stowe, who did a creditable job of bringing blacks to life in Uncle Tom's Cabin, wasn't able to make them as sympathetic as Twain did with Jim. The entire book, besides being a literary masterpiece, was a giant swipe at racism. By bringing Jim alive on those pages, Twain was able to get his readers to see blacks as many of them never had before: as human beings just like everyone else.

Here's an interesting article on it, surprisingly, from PBS. It contains a Hemingway quote that I wanted to provide, but I thought a link would be more useful. To have people dismiss it as "racist" simply because it uses the dialect of the time is shallow ignorance.
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Thank you! My whole class was against me when I said that Twain was NOT AT ALL RACIST. Their point was that in some of the adventures, Jim was left behind in the raft. My answer was that Twain named his classic "The Adventures of Huck Finn" for that reason, because it was HIS adventures not Jim's. Jim was put there as a character to show how much Huck changes throughout the story. He becomes more mature and finally realizes that African Americans love their families just as much as whites do. I felt as if Jim was a father character throughout the novel. He could have left the boat when they missed Cairo, yet he knew that Huck was orphaned so he stayed with him. With this in mind, I am against the claim that "Twain was racist." I find that very obsurd.


I'll check out that article, thanks. :)
 
Mark Twain was in no way a racist. Although he accepted slavery as a fact, he was personally against it. POTW is correct in the fact that the use of the 'N' word was the common way they talked back then. The term actually means uneducated or ignorant and Twain recognized that there were as many whites who fell into that category as well but since his books would be read primarily by whites, he didn't refer to them in that way. It wasn't until later that the term became used in such a derogatory way against blacks.

Today, it does sound racist, but back then it wasn't.
 
I read it last year because it was assigned for litature class.Yes they did use the "N" word.But my teacher never spoke about Mark Twain being racist.I don't think he is.
 
Huck Fin is one of my all time favorite books. THough i never was assigned to read it. I have a literary crush on huck lol. No i dont think it should be banned.
 
Ooh, there's a thought! A new rationale: "Banned for loving literary classics without regard to shallow politically correct fads"!

There's a reason classics are classics. Intelligent lovers of good stories will still be appreciating Huck long after the modern bowdlerizers have gone the way of the original one.
 
The book is a classic and appreciated around the world by many people. Personally I think anyone who is making waves over this book in the media because of it's language is just trying to make a name for themselves. A good portion of the music, movies, tv shows, and other forms of entertainment that we put out today is way more offensive. Besides if we banned that book we would have to ban a good portion of the books written before 1950.
 
Lucy the Marshwiggle said:
Wow everyone seems to agree that Mark Twain wasn't a racist. I wish some of you were in my class to support me. :(
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Cut and paste some of our replies and take them to school with you. Challenge the other students to read up on the biography of Mark Twain and to get to understand the culture of the day. Because the 'N' word has been used in a derogatory way over the last 100 years or so, at the time of Mark Twain, it wasn't considered a racist word.
 
Son of Adam said:
Cut and paste some of our replies and take them to school with you. Challenge the other students to read up on the biography of Mark Twain and to get to understand the culture of the day. Because the 'N' word has been used in a derogatory way over the last 100 years or so, at the time of Mark Twain, it wasn't considered a racist word.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...you think I should? We're having another discussion tomorrow.
 
Origin of the 'N' word:

During slavery slaves were sold to the Americans by Portuguese slave traders.

It did not start out as a derogatory term, it became that after slavery to the civil rights movment and today. Blacks today say it means, "A low life person" with that anyone can be a 'n', this comes from a lack of research.

It came from the fact that many of them were originally from the country of Niger in Africa.
 
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