The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

When you take a first look at this novel, you see terms that are used that make the book sound racist, but as you look further into the entire meaning, you see that is not what it is at all. The wording and some of the actions such as the tricks Huck and Tom play on Jim are rude but that was the time. The term "nigger" is used in this book it does make the reader feel uncomfortable but without it in the novel meaning would be gone. My argument for this paper is going to be that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not a racist novel. While there are moments where all it seems is that Jim is being treated badly, the whole concept of the novel is how Huck escapes and then helps Jim to get to freedom. On page 140 when Jim says that Huck is the only true friend he has ever had the reader can see that Huck is trying to do good. Also, Huck even says that he will probably go to Hell for this but that he is willing to do so. Another time in the book when Huck trys to go ashore to see if the town they were near was Cario and ran into the two men on the boat, he lies to them in order to save Jim. After he lies the thinks back and says he probably should have told in Jim, but then soon convinces himself that he would feel just as bad as he did now if he would have. This shows that although he has grown up in a white family he can see the importance of people being treated equally. While this is never said, the reader can also look back to Huck's childhood and see how he was badly mistreated by his drunken father and infer that possibly he sees the importance to care for others from that. When him and Jim need to do something together or Huck refers to the both of them instead of lowering Jim to a level below him, he simply uses terms such as us and we. He looks to Jim as another person of fairly equal status and although he still uses some things that point toward him being racist we then look at his life and it makes sense. When this book was written it was during the time period of slavery. Treating African Americans as lower class citizens is just what was done. People did not think of them as people of the same importance and almost not even as the same species. It is like when Jim and Huck have the conversation about the French language and Jim can't understand why they need to speak another language and why since they were all human why French words are words too. This shows how in all groups of people they are slightly different from one another and without the understanding of others, only anger and rudeness will occur. Since Jim doesn't understand it, he almost gets mad in saying that Frenchmen need to speak English but that goes back to how most white people at that time thought everyone should have white skin in order to be human. As for this book being taught in school, I think that is a hard thing to decide. While this book could be viewed as racist, it is also a great starting point for both controvery and education. I think that in order to teach this book in a school environment, the teacher must look at the students in both the class and the school. If there is already a problem of using the n-word in a school, then the teacher then must decide whether reading this book is something that will diminish students ignorance towards other races and tell them what is right or if it will just foster more rude behavior. Is it a school where many kids eyes are closed to the world or is it a place where they know their history and understand how this was a very important time in history? This book has definetly become an American Classic and due to that many teachers feel they NEED to teach it. My opinion on this is that the teacher needs to observe the context of their class, assess how the book will be taken, and then decide whether or not they think it is appropriate. I think this book does have some good lessons in it but if there are students who have been greatly affected by racism, maybe this book will just make them more angry and rebel. Context is key.