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Huckleberry Finn Persuasive Essay

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“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

How often do we hear about a literary work that is still causing controversy 131 years later after it had been published. This is the case with Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Today critics and school systems across America are campaigning to remove this classic for the use of one word. “Nigger,” a word so offensive that it is usually called the “N-word.” Even though Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn was written decades after slavery was abolished, the word Nigger was very much still present in America, the novel also portrays blacks as superstitious, and the use of dialect leads to the idea that people, especially blacks were synonymous of ignorance. From the moment this novel was published in 1885 it caused controversy due to the fact that it poked fun at religion, challenged authority and was accused of leading children astray. Surprisingly, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is still making news today. …show more content…

It is probable that nigger is a phonetic spelling of the White Southern mispronunciation of Negro. The word Nigger appears in Mark Twain’s novel a total of 219 times this makes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a tricky novel to teach. There are many feelings of anger and resentment when the word is brought up; surely it is the most provocative word in the English dictionary. What many critics realize to see is that Mark Twain was anti-racist. He was a friend of educator Booker T. Washington and helped fund many African American institutions. The switch of the word nigger for the word “slave” will alter the flow of the novel, and will be almost, but not quite the right word to use. “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter-‘tis the difference between the lighting-bug and the lighting.” -Mark

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