ipl-logo

Why Huckleberry Finn Should Not Be Banned Essay

1255 Words6 Pages

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). Since this book contains many racial slurs and violence, people want it banned or censored. Although, Huckleberry Finn should remain how it is because altering it changes the impact of the book, people will still be exposed to these slurs, and it is an opportunity to teach readers.
The censored version of Huck Finn replaces the ‘N-word’ with the word ‘slave’. This would be an inaccurate representation because they have a …show more content…

Mark Twain wrote this book to show readers what life was like. He connected it to his life growing up and wanted to make readers aware of the way people were treated for the color of their skin. Censoring or banning this book would be a crime because it teaches so much and we do not need to change it. Racism was and is a problem in our society and Mark Twain brings it to the surface through a fictional novel. By forcing a book to be changed and molded to make people more comfortable, it is saying you can alter history and history cannot and should not be erased. If you do not like what The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn teaches and stands for, then simply do not read it instead of trying to change a

Show More
Related
943 Words | 4 Pages

Some school districts have banned the book due to the use of the “n word”, the negative portrayal of African Americans throughout the book, and Huckleberry’s distasteful character, which offers a poor role model for youth. However, these misguided administrators misunderstand Twain’s literature because Twain uses the “n word” to spotlight its offensive and dehumanizing nature, the portrayal of African Americans is

Read More
138 Words | 1 Pages

Ever since Mark Twain published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885, it has been one of the most banned books in America. Not only one, but many different people/groups have banned Mark Twain’s classic due to the consistent theme of race. The book is considered inappropriate because of how Mark Twain regards African Americans and Indigenous people. Historically, it is off of many school bookshelves because many may argue that the book even promotes racism. One month after the book’s debut in 1885, a library in Concord, MA stated that Twain’s novel was "trash and suitable only for the slums".

Read More
913 Words | 4 Pages

The sole purpose of banning a book is to make sure that students do not read it. People can access The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn online, in bookstores, and in libraries. Since The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is well known, it is also likely for family members to have the book, they would want their relatives to read

Read More
163 Words | 1 Pages

For the reason that the n-word appears 219 times in the novel, many schools have decided to ban the book in their classrooms. Cautiously questioning students whether or not the novel arouses an “uncomfortable” (Coeyman) feeling, teachers debate on teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Multiple teachers feel that their inter-racial classes may include students who feel offended by the n-word. Various schools have considered the novel to be “...too racially offensive…”(Coeyman). For instance, school districts in Virginia have banned the book after a mother complained about how her son was disturbed by the “‘...racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can’t get past…’”(Balingit).

Read More
1456 Words | 6 Pages

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

Read More
828 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
724 Words | 3 Pages

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

Read More
452 Words | 2 Pages

Mark Twain put meaning and accuracy in the book using the N-word in Huckleberry Finn. The way the book is phrased helps to teach a lesson, seeing and reading how the word was used at that time helps students to learn about the word and why it’s wrong to use, if not of the correct skin color. The almost unnecessarily large use of the N-word within the

Read More
718 Words | 3 Pages

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Should be Banned From Schools In school are students supposed to learn about bad language and how to treat people poorly?The fiction novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain should be removed from schools. Twain writes about serious topics as a satire so many people do not realize the intensity. The language, alcoholism, violence, lying, and breaking the law are a few reasons for this novel to be banned from schools. Mark Twain writes about many questionable subjects but does so as a satire which makes it slightly more acceptable.

Read More
168 Words | 1 Pages

The controversy that surrounds the novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is partly because schools and libraries across the United States have been drawn into debates about the censorship context included in the novel, the regional dialects and the stereotypes of African-American lives shown in the novel. Mark Twain included words in this novel, that have been previously noted as offensive, to properly portray the southern lifestyle and these words included have helped cause the controversy over it. These terms, if not understood as an element of Realism, can be inappropriate or disturbing for young readers to have read. Characters in the novel also follow stereotypes of the African-American lifestyle that is an insult if the reader doesn't

Read More
1441 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More
1245 Words | 5 Pages

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic book, and in my eyes classics like this never die unless the people of newer and/or future generations who read it read it or consider reading it write it off. There are books that in this day and age are illegal to buy because people say things like “it is racist against the African American community”, and in a few instances that is correct, but there are a few things that those people fail to consider. People fail to consider that books like this one are written about a time where the black community was seen as nothing more than creatures with a darker skin tone that they sell as slaves (and I say “creatures” not to be/sound racist but because at the time they weren’t seen as people. Unfortunately, they were seen as slaves and nothing more), and the people of today’s society think that there will be little to no racism or racist comments. The people also fail to see that the book wasn’t

Read More
816 Words | 4 Pages

“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.

Read More
348 Words | 2 Pages

To ban the book entirely was one solution to end this controversy. Last year, public schools in Virginia began a process of reviewing the book in order to decide whether it should be kept in classrooms and school libraries. This course of action started when a mother of a biracial high school student “filed a complaint with the administration, saying that her son had struggled to read a page in "Huck Finn" that was filled with racial slurs” (Beck). According to the mother, "This is great literature. But there (are so many) racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can 't get past that" (Beck).

Read More
917 Words | 4 Pages

Students should learn about the value the novel provides from that time-period in which Mark Twain wrote, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain put the N word in the novel for a reason, to describe the time-period in which these events had occurred. Phillip Rawls writes, “‘It’s such a shame that one word should be a barrier between a marvelous reading experience and a lot of readers,’ Gribben said. Yet Twain was particular about his words.”

Read More

More about Why Huckleberry Finn Should Not Be Banned Essay

Related Topics

Open Document