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Should Huck Finn Be Taught In Schools Essay

746 Words3 Pages

Should Huck Finn be read and taught in schools? This question has been constantly debated since the book was published 132 years ago. According to the American Library Association, it was number 14 on the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books list for over a decade. Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, contains language that may be considered offensive to some, but this should be overlooked because the lessons the reader learns are more important than the language it contains. By Jim’s kindness and love towards Huck, and the different characters that have impacted Huck’s life, readers can gain a deeper understanding of how racism can lead people to judge character too soon. Huck’s experiences of living with Pap impacted him in a negative way. For example, Huck’s thoughts on his relationship with his father are shown when he says, “Pap he hadn’t seen me for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn’t want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around” (Twain 21). Huck realizes that life will be easier away from his father because whether Pap was drunk or sober, Huck was always in a bad situation, either neglected or abused. In addition, due to the way he was treated, the woods felt like more of a home than his house. Despite Huck's difficult and challenging childhood, he didn't …show more content…

The lessons that the reader learns through this novel are still applicable today. For example, people today are judged based on their looks and how they dress, not on who they really are. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be read and studied in schools because the truths found in the book are still relevant to us and can be applied to our daily

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The Grangerfords and Pap are two of the characters who are utilized by Twain to denounce edified society. Twain utilizes parody to express his conviction that "acculturated" society is neither good, moral, nor civilized.   Exaggeration, stereotyping, and incongruity are utilized all through the story to satirize and to uncover the Grangerfords as the run of the mill southern blue-bloods and pap as the regular plastered "white junk." After a ferryboat mischance, Huck appears to lose his slave partner Jim subsequent to coming shorewards. Huck then is acquainted with Buck Grangerford (about the same age as Huck) and is permitted to stay in the Grangerford family.

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In 1998, McClintock High School in Tempe, Arizona assigned students to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The book has long been regarded as a controversial novel, and each generation that comes upon it has found something that rubs against the current societal norms. The mother of a student at McClintock took serious offense to the use of the word, “nigger” throughout the book and protested that it be banned due to the racial discrimination (Source I). Huck Finn is just one of the many pieces of literature that have been labelled “challenging,” and many feel that they do not deserve a place in schools’ curriculum. However, the study of challenging literature introduces students to new ideas and lessons that they can apply

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American literature has always been a form of entertainment and education. When slaves were introduced as characters in books, they were always negative, stereotypical characters, but not until 1883 when Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a change made. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book about a southern white boy in the 1800’s that runs away with an escaped slave on the Mississippi River. For years, schools have been debating on if the book should be banned in schools or not, and it is already on a variety of banned lists. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should not be banned in schools because it is an anti-slavery novel that teaches students valuable lessons and informs students of the past culture.

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First denounced by the Concord Public Library Committee on the grounds of being “flippant, irreverent, and trashy.” , it is now being banned on the basis of racism. The book has gone from immoral trash to racist trash. The Adventures of Huck Finn should not be banned because it shows the

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At the beginning of the story Huck has to endure the cruel and harsh environment that surrounds his entire life in order to transform into an archetypal hero.  Huck is faced with the challenge of his abusive and alcoholic father who is not pleased with Huck’s choices “You're educated,

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Twain does his best to deal with the conflict between society and the individual. Huck does not want to abide by society’s laws and does not want to conform in Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck is forced to be civilized in the beginning, so he leaves society for freedom and lives by his own rules but even that does not make Huck’s life easy. Huck has trouble obeying society’s rules from the start of the book. The Widow Douglas takes Huck in to try to sivilize him says Huck in the quote, “The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me”(Twain 2).

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Racism takes a massive toll on the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book Huckleberry Finn teaches us different lessons on how black people were treated and how racism was/is a big part of the world. Mark Twain published his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on December 10, 1884, and was pronounced a banned book in 1885 because it was said to be “‘trash’ and ‘only suitable for the slums’”(American). In my opinion, Huckleberry Finn should not be a banned book in high schools since it teaches us valuable lessons about what blacks' lives were like and how they were treated differently than any other person. In this analysis, I’m going to be talking about how Huckleberry Finn matured throughout the story and how I think that

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Huck Finn is still relevant today in the fact that it has a very important life lesson that everyone should know. On his adventure Huck learned not to follow the rest of society and to do what he thought was right. When Huck decided not to turn Jim in he was so torn about what to do. Of course the answer is obvious for most of us that no he should not turn Jim in however, Huck was raised in a society that pressured him to thinking that he should turn him in. Even while having been raised in this type of racist environment Huck realized he didn’t care what the “sivilized” people thought and he wanted to help Jim.

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After observing Huck for over forty chapters, it is safe to conclude that this twelve year old boy is molded into a more magnificent character with every step of the way. He is taught by many masters, some who do not even realize that they are the teacher. He overcomes great fears and obstacles that he never thought possible in his wildest dreams. Huck triumphs over the ideas of slavery, religious hypocrisy, and the many stereotypes of the South without ever looking back. If there is any lesson prominent in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is that people should never just blindly follow the crowd because it is the safest route.

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Not everyone lives their life that way though. Huck is betrayed by societies faulty systems and poorly imposed laws early in the book. The very judicial system that was supposed to protect him instead hands him over to his drunk abusive father. The whole town knew what kind of man his father was, and knew that Huck would be better off under the guardianship of the widow, but the judge treated Huck like he was nothing more than his father 's property and said "courts mustn 't interfere and separate families if they could help it." That decision led to Huck living such a terrible life with his drunk

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But when Pap disappears, the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson take Huck in and attempt to civilize him by giving him new, clean clothes, teaching him to read and write, and teaching him manners. Huck’s immaturity is evident in the beginning of the story with accounts of Huck’s shenanigans with Tom. He ruins his fresh clothes, sneaks out at night, gets in fights, joins a “robber gang”, and goes on adventures with his friends. His actions show that his morals aren't present and he could care less about trying to do the right thing and be a good boy for the Widow and Miss Watson.

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Huckleberry Finn is a story about a rambunctious young boy who adventures off down the Mississippi River. “The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain demonstrates a situation where a Huck tries to find the balance between what is right and what is wrong. Huck faces many challenges in which his maturity will play a part in making the correct decision for himself and his friend Jim. Huck becomes more mature by the end of the novel by showing that he can make the correct decisions to lead Jim to the freedom he deserves. One major factor where Huck matures throughout the novel is through his experience.

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“If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way”(126) . Huck has already learned from his Pap and society as a whole on how to deal with people like Pap

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Throughout the book, Huck encounters people such as pap, the Widow, and Jim who teach him lessons that prove to be useful along his journey to freedom. He come to realize how his life changed throughout his experiences, and he believes that the society he was born into is corrupted by the same people who taught him his life lessons. Fortunately, because of the money and the lack of legal control, he plans to “light out for the Territory ahead of the rest” (220), where he seeks freedom

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Since Huck is used to being held captive and taken advantage of by his own father after his journey is over he would rather be alone than expect to live under someone 's roof and by their mannerisms. “Aunt Sally she’s

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