Response To Huckleberry Finn

During the late 1800s, Mark Twain also know as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This novel is the story of a young boy who runs away with a slave and together they sail down the Mississippi River. It is considered to be the quintessential American novel because of how it battled racism against African Americans during the time of the Civil War. Although the novel is thought to be the most valuable to read, some groups oppose the novel due to Twain’s usage of nigger appears about 219 times. A professor by the name of Alan Gribben aimed to censor the novel and redistribute it in February 2011. He replaced words such as the nigger and half-breed with the words slaves and half-blood. To ease his own conscious,

Waldschmidt is attempting to explain the difference between the pair’s behavior on the shore and the river. On one hand, the river is the only time when Huck and Jim are able to have full rein of their thoughts and actions, but on the other hand, the shore is a place where the both of them have to conform to society’s customs. For example, on the shore, Jim has to act as a slave, but on the raft, Jim is able to act as himself and can guide Huck. Switching the words, would change Twain’s intent. He wants everyone to know that society was racist and corrupt when he was a boy. Although “Huck’s use of the word nigger” is racist and shows that he doesn’t “really care enough about [Jim]”, Twain wished for it to be that way so that the reader could view the backwards thinking of the 1800s(Smiley 62). Huck is only a boy who is on the run in 19th century America, of course his primary concern isn’t Jim’s freedom. Huck needed to save himself before he could help Jim. Twain abhorred society and in order to advocate free thought, he used Huck’s voice and story to promote it. He does this by demonstrating

Places under communist rule such as China, have censorship and that limits their rights, so if America is the opposite of communism, then why is censorship being promoted? Censoring Huck Finn has no solid reason as to why they want to censor it. Some people say that it “promotes witchcraft and homosexuality” but Harry Potter is a series about wizardry and no one seems to mind( Smiley 64). Thousands of people read Harry Potter everyday, and no has been successful in banning the series. Also, for promoting homosexuality, The Perks of Being a Wallflower also challenges the ideas of homophobia, but that novel has earned itself a movie in the past few years.Why should Huck Finn, an older novel, not get the same respect? Everyone should respect a novel regardless of who wrote it, or when they wrote it. America in the 1800s was built on a foundation of rights, and considering Gribbens just censored the novel, he just basically ignored America’s beliefs. Censoring Huck Finn would be a