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Controversy Of Huckleberry Finn Research Paper

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The Controversy of Huckleberry Finn Throughout history, books have been banned for content that certain parties deem inappropriate for the public. The censorship of books by the government, local organizations, or private individuals removes books from certain areas, limiting public access, usually due to the nature of themes and ideas. This includes books with topics related to violence, extreme political beliefs, race, gender and sexuality, or any potential offensive content. In the case of Huckleberry Finn, religion and race have been used as reasons to ban the book. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has divided readers on its banning, with some claiming that it is racist, not racist enough, and anti-Christian. Nevertheless, the novel proved that these …show more content…

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is controversial and has been debated on being banned, due to its racist character; in reality, these allegations were untrue. Huckleberry Finn is known for the excessive use of the n-word, and many people have reservations about the word being used in the novel. While the n-word is profoundly offensive, “Most of the characters who use the word, including Huckleberry Finn, are racists and it would not be accurate for them to not use the word”(Gardner, 21). This evidence explains the way the n-word has evolved in its use over time. Twain kept his novel realistic to the time period, where that word was said often, and there was not a well-known alternative. Although the characters in the book are racist, this does not mean that Mark Twain himself is. Some people also suggest that the depiction of the character Jim is racist. “Jim is very ignorant and superstitious and speaks in a dialogue heavy with misspellings and mispronunciations. However, many argue that was the natural outcome of him being a slave with no formal education,” which is another way Twain was accurate to the era he was writing about (Gardner,

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One popular book that has been challenged for banning is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This novel is about a runaway boy and his slave on their quest to the North for freedom. They face many obstacles and even though they never make it to the North, Jim is set free anyway. Although some people think that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be banned in schools, it should not be banned because the novel is classic literature that people can easily get their hands on, it shows what life was like for African Americans while slavery was still permitted, and the book teaches valuable life lessons. There is no point in banning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because it can be easily acquired by kids since it is a classic novel.

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Many books have been censored or banned in libraries and schools across the United States because of their suggestive or inappropriate content. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, a sequel to the popular The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, is one of the books that are being illuminated as “unfit to read”. It is the story a young boy, Huck, and a black man, Jim, in the 1800s, who ran away and their journey across the Mississippi River. It is a controversial piece in a majority of the classrooms across America. In this book, the N word shows up over two hundred times (Here's Why Banning 'Huck Finn' Over The N-Word Sends The Wrong Message).

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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, why this book written by Mark Twain should be on the banned books list in schools and why it is too mature for it’s students. This book is full of situations that honesty students are not able to handle, leaving inappropriate impressions about racism and how to treat people and is going to cause teenagers and young adults to repeat the language and personalities seen in this, to other groups of this century that are fitting now The problem with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn isn’t that it is a bad book, not that maybe it is poorly written or isn’t a learning experience. The fact of the matter is that students do not hold the attention span or mental capacity to be forced to deal with this. While some may use to excuse that high school students may have enough knowledge over these situations, or if explained, people would enjoy the moral of the story more, that is not always the case.

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Why HuckleBerry Finn shouldn’t be banned HuckleBerry Finn is indeed one of the greatest pieces in American Literature, it gives the world a outlook on how the world used to be. HuckleBerry Finn in general is mostly portrayed to be a comedy, not everything the book mentions is meant to be taken seriously. The book gives off the message that we shouldn’t make the mistakes our ancestors once did.

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After reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I could not understand people 's argument on banning this story that had gone way past it 's time showing the friendship between a black man and a white boy, which was almost unimaginable at the time in many people 's minds, and exposing the worst parts of humanity, showing that we don 't live in a picture-perfect world. While doing some research, however, I had found that most arguments against letting Huck Finn were because of the conspicuous and repetitive use of the n-word, as well as the extreme racial theme that is played out throughout the course of the novel. It all made sense to me then. As always America is again trying to cover up their insightful, but very real history, in hopes that it will be forgotten so that they can go on to be recognized as the

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Mark Twain, author of Huckleberry Finn, uses the n-word a total of two-hundred nineteen times in his book. Before diving into the subject matter, the book called Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a novel set before the Civil War following the journey of a young boy named Huck. Huck struggles to escape his abusive father and takes to the Mississippi river alongside a black man named Jim. Jim, himself, struggles to gain freedom and escape enslavement. This novel would be considered a serious offense to an individual who has a closed mind about the matter at hand and has not fully understood when this book took place.

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We know that Twain is not racist, but he did use the N-word to show what kind of people his characters were. Delila Lloyd wrote a document that addresses both sides of the issue, but one of the points that sticks out is "Take the N-word out of Huck Finn, and is it really Huck Finn?" (Lloyd). Huck uses the N-word because he grew up in a society where the word was meaningless, and was used to describe slaves as scum. The word practically means nothing, but not as in the word doesn't have a meaning, but in the sense that the people described as the word are meaningless.

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Teaching Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in a core class will expose all students to its valuable lessons. Teaching it in an elective class will expose very few students to its lessons because very few will opt for the class. Refraining from teaching it will expose no students to them. Even if Twain used it 219 times, the “N-Word” ought not to change the exposure rate of Huck Finn. As the University of Oregon professor said, it’s important to confront the “N-Word” head-on.

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In 1939, World War II began in Europe between the Allied powers and the Axis powers. The Second World War started as a result of residual anger and frustration from the Germans left over from the Great War. The Great War was the first time advanced technology such as the airplane, machine gun, tank, and submarine, was seen or even used in warfare. From the end of the Great War to the end of World War II, technology had progressed at an extraordinary rate. (ontextualization statement).

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Original or revised, Huck Finn will still remain a great character to follow along with, and to be involved with in his adventures, but if this story is to be taught in schools then the original read needs to be read and discussed. There is no point, then, reading this story about the culture of the nineteenth century, if the offensiveness cannot be addressed in an advanced classroom. So many other books-banned books-are read every year by students, and those books along with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn contains some complex topics; debatable topics. In order to create capable thinkers, they need to learn how to think about the deep, uncomfortable, nitty-gritty, subjects of life. Students learn about the loss of innocence, evil, corrupt politics, death, sex, racism and much more in books like Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Animal Farm by George Orwell, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and there are many other books which contain subjects close to these.

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They said the book was “unworthy to be placed on their shelves” and many of the papers supported them. Huckleberry Finn has been stirring up controversy for over a hundred years and there seems to be no end in sight. One day the book will hopefully be used to its full potential in the classroom for helping overcome racism. The friendship they build becomes so strong that when JIm is captured, and sold Huck goes after him, at the time it was unthinkable for a white person to do that for a slave. They both learn to look out for eachother “I went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me when it was my turn.

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It is important to know what has occurred in history, so humanity does not repeat. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has not only been banned recently, but soon after its original release as well. This shows how this novel is not only notorious for being banned currently, but a century ago. “A month after its publication, a Concord, Massachusetts, library banned the book, calling its subject matter “tawdry” and its narrative voice “coarse” and “ignorant”... other libraries followed suit, beginning a controversy that continued long after Twain’s death in 1910” (“Twain”). This statement is preposterous, in more than one way.

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Lester argues that the improper portrayal of African Americans is detrimental to education. Lester mentions that Jim, an African-American, is portrayed as a “childlike” character, “more like one of the boys in Tom Sawyer’s gang than a grown man with a wife and children” (Lester 202). The character built around Jim is most likely a stereotype meant for black individuals, Twain's use of characterization does not effectively challenge racism rather it creates a stereotype of what a person might act like because of their race. Lester also argues that Twain intentionally added racial stereotypes to make it appealing to white readers “because it permits their own ‘humanity’ to shine with more luster” (Lester 203). The improper portrayal can be seen in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when Tom decides “There ain’t necessity enough in this case and, besides, Jim’s a n*****, and wouldn’t understand the reasons for it, and how its the custom in Europe”

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In the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the racist attitudes of the Deep South in the late 1800's are shown. Mark Twain portrays a runaway slave, Jim, as a racist caricature who does whatever is asked of him and exhibits little intelligence. The reader can initially see this through the use of the word "nigger" that is all throughout the book. In the modern 21st century this term is taken offensively, but in the 19th century this term was commonly used and Twain took advantage of it.

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