Many lessons to be learned from Huck Finn

Intro (1 page)

Although this book is regarded as “one of the central documents of American culture” and is one of the greatest anti-racist novels in american history, because of the era it is set in, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has become a book of great controversy (Trilling). The late 1800’s were a period of racial tension in the United States, and Huck Finn was one of the first literary critiques of how embedded racism is in our culture. The use of Mississippi dialects, picaresque short stories, and complex characters, make Huck Finn a book that experts still argue over.

Racist? No! (3 pages)

• Huck’s relationship with Jim evolves from slave, to acquaintance, to father figure:
• “for in Jim he finds his true father” - Trilling,
• “what he considers the clear dictates of moral reason are not merely the engrained customary beliefs of his time and place.” - Trilling
• Huck and Jim become a pair, with Huck referring to Jim’s freedom as “our” job and “we” must continue on and they’re after “us”
• “There ain’t a minute to lose. They’re after us!” - Huck Finn.
• “His unpremeditated identification with Jim’s flight from slavery is an unforgettable moment in American experience” - Marx.
• “After all this long journey...here was it all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars. (200-01) - Huck Finn.
• Huck as a character transforms within, going from wanting to turn Jim in and thinking that is the right and moral thing to do, to “going to hell” to help a “nigger” escape
• “He has a great sense of sadness of human life” - Trilling
• Language used is simply from the era: the warning by Twain at the beginning of the novel

Taught in schools? Yes! (3 pages)

There are a significant amount of lessons to be learned from Huck Finn. The style, history of racism, and society’s bondage are all morals that can be taught.

• Literary style: going from the river to ashore
• Historical depiction of slavery
• Society’s structure and rules
• “his escape from society is but his way of reaching what society ideally dreams of for itself,” - Trilling,
• “He belongs neither to the Sunday School nor the Reformatory” - Eliot
• Points out what was coevally wrong with America
• “Twain couldn’t solve the problem that America couldn’t solve” - David Bradley in terms of what do with the institution of slavery, it’s wrong but how do we deal with changing it?
• The ending makes Huck return to society (Tom) and fall back into his old habits. On the river he was a changed boy, with Jim, but once back at a white supremacist farm with Tom, he falls back into society’s mold
• “the conscience of a southern boy in the middle of the last century” - Trilling

What I will write!

To introduce the controversy regarding Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I think I am going to start by using phrases from Trilling and Smiley to showcase both extremes. I will probably open by presenting a little background for both arguments. To support the assertion that Huck Finn is not a racist novel and should be taught in school I will use Trilling’s statement that it is “one of the central documents of American culture.” (Pg. 1) I will further paraphrase some of Eliot’s central arguments to accentuate the novel’s anti-racist qualities. In transition from this point of view I will utilize Smiley’s bold accusation that “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has little to offer in the way of greatness.” (Pg. 62) Once I have clearly determined both arguments regarding the value of Huck Finn I will strategically discredit Smiley’s opinion and elevate Trilling and Eliot’s as the more plausible conclusion. I would like to embed Eliot’s belief that Huck Finn “is the only one of Mark Twain’s various books which can be called a masterpiece,” (Pg. 286) to reveal the novel’s role in literature throughout history. Ultimately I will make the case that Huck Finn is far from a racist novel because it genuinely depicts the relationship between a young white boy and a runaway slave, who manage to surpass the rules of society and form a bond despite racial norms of the 1840’s. Once I have established Huck Finn as an anti-racist novel that succeeds in depicting the evils of society by revealing the hypocrisy of slavery in the South, I will shift into the debate regarding the novel and its role in the high school curriculum. I will use several speakers from ‘Culture Shock’ to depict the controversy regarding Huck Finn’s inclusion in the mandatory reading list for high school students. I will contradict David Bradley’s argument that “language hurts people,” in reference to use of the word ‘nigger’ throughout the novel, seeing as African American’s today use the word without any sense of degradation or hurtful intention. The student involved in the Tempe case argued that although the word doesn’t offend her and that she “is immune” to the word, she hates to see it affect other African Americans in a negative way. If she feels so strongly regarding this word, shouldn’t she take up arms with her fellow high school students who have popularized the word and stripped it of its negative connotations? Also people seem to forget that Twain strategically utilized the vernacular form of speech to relate the story to the time period in which it was set. Therefore, the use of the ‘n’ word is in no way meant to degrade or offend African American readers. Regarding the end of the novel, I will argue that, although the last 13 chapters of Huck Finn appear to discredit Huck and Jim’s relationship aboard the raft, ultimately the ending allows the reader to decide if the racial norms of society have been defeated by the two along their journey to freedom. My central argument that Huck Finn should be included in the high school curriculum is supported by the fact that it is so controversial, and no single analysis is correct or superior. It allows for thoughtful, substantial debate within a classroom setting that most novels fail to facilitate. So basically my ‘thesis’ statement will be something along the lines of: Although a superficial analysis of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn may conclude that the novel is indeed racist, a more in depth account of the story will reveal Twain’s use of satire, hypocrisy, and realism to emphasize the evils of falling victim to the rules of society. Furthermore, such a complex novel should be integrated into the high school curriculum in order to allow students to form judgments based solely what they hold to be true of Huck Finn. To organize my thoughts I will start with one or two pages of introduction, 3 to 4 pages showcasing the novel’s anti-racist qualities, 3-4 pages arguing that Huck Finn should be included in the curriculum, and 1 to 2 pages of conclusion to clearly restate my thoughts and drive home my argument.

Twainer

I believe that HuckFinn is a decent novel that has its place in history due to its own ambiguity. tHE VERY FACT THe THE NOVEL CAN BE DEBATED AS IT IS IS WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT. I believe that this book should be taught in upper class men high school classes. It should be so not because of the novel itself, but the significance of the conversation that can derive from it. To tell you the truth, I do not believe that this novel was brutal enough in showing the horrors of slavery or in its depiction of rural life in the south. Therefore, I think that other books should be taught before, or along with HuckFinn, in order for students to better understand this sad time in out nations history. Children need to be exposed to these atrocities. No one should ever forget or try to ignore what happened then. To do so would only lend itself to a future of repeating the pass, instead of learning from it. I will use the passages that depict Huck's inner moral struggle and what he thinks is the "right" thing to do. I will also use the ending, and show how this dry satire screams out to be hated, on purpose. Twain's writings for the San Francisco Chronicle are incredible similar to to the end of HuckFinn. He wants to sicken you. No book that involves slavery shouldn't. But as I said before, students should read Fredrick Douglas or some other authors, preferably perhaps a slave writer, that more accurately and more upsettingly describe the way things were for slaves back in the eighteenth to nineteenth century America. Is the book racist? Yes. Is that what is in important? No. For the time this book was written this novel was incredibly not racist. When this book was written, African Americans were not considered human by many people in our country. We must always remember and learn from the past, as to never even remotely repeat it again.

GET OVER IT!

I strongly disagree with the assumptions that Huck Finn is a Racist Novel. The people that try to back up that argument are blowing it out of proportion. They are looking at such specific details such as the word "nigger," but what they really need to take in to perspective is larger ideas in the book. Yeah, maybe their is some racist dialog in the book, but remember, this is just DIALOG! Twain is only trying to create an accurate picture of life back in the day when slavery was a normal thing. If he wanted he could of lied about how people spoke back then and not incorporate the word, but would this really be helping anything? To my understanding the word in that book on supports the argument of how horrible slavery was back in the day. This is what these upset people need to realize, twain was not trying to degrade people of color; he was attempting to tell the whole truth of how horrible slavery was. “Wherein does its greatness lie? Primarily in its power of telling the truth.”(Lionel Trilling) These haters should stop being so close minded and try to actually finish the novel. If they proceeded to read the whole novel they would see that Huck is constantly going against society to help Jim. He is doing this because he knows that is wrong, and this is the message that Twain was attempting to put out when he wrote it. Twain wants every one to see how bad slavery was, and also how one small boy could overcome the "normal" and evolve to help a slave flee to freedom. As to the argument of if this book should be required to be read in public schools, of coarse it should! The school should make sure that their teachers have read the book and understand its moral before they jump to conclusions or let any of their students jump to conclusions.

Huck Finn

My argument is basically going to be that the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not a racist book and that it should be taught in school, but should be taught to seniors only. One of the parts of the novel that I want to use is when Huck returns to Jackson Island after learning that some of the townsfolk are going to go looking for the runaway slave on Jackson Island and he says "'Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain't a minute to lose. They're after us!'" (97) This line shows how Huck is thinking of Jim and him as in the same boat, as comrades. No one is after Huck, because everyone thinks that he's dead. The only one that they're after is Jim, but Huck still says "' They're after us!'" Another scene that I want to use is when Huck meets up with the slave catchers, but protects Jim from them instead of turning him in, which is what he has been taught to do all his life. Before Huck leaves the raft to see what the other men want, Jim says that pretty soon he'll be a free man because of Huck. That Huck is the "'bes' fren' Jim's ever had'" (140) and the only one that he has right now. That makes Huck feel really guilty about having to rat Jim out, and he ends up lying to the slave catchers to help Jim and keep him free. I want to use the part just before that, when Jim is talking about stealing his children and wife when he's free. Huck remarks that he is sorry to hear Jim talk like that, that it is such a lowering of him. This line shows that Huck believed that Jim was a good person, who wouldn't steal from other people. To my knowledge, many slaves were thought to be thieves back then, so Jim's talk wouldn't surprise too many white people, but it is surprising and unexpected to Huck. On page 315, Huck escapes from the King and the Duke and lites out to Jim and the raft. At that point, Huck 'borrows' a canoe to get to the raft, and in the storm that was going on, Huck could have easily left Jim and continued down the river on his own. Instead, he goes to the raft and tries to leave the Duke and the King with Jim. This action shows that Huck shares a feeling of comradeship with Jim, and sees him as a friend who is not to be left behind. I'll use Lionel Trilling mainly, for helping to make my point, and Jane Smiley as well, to argue with and find new passages that I can use. As for organization, I'll use the passages from the book in cronological order first, then use the critics to better finalize my points, and to bring up new ones that I didn't cover from the book passages.

huckleberry

I am going to defend Twain's novel. This wonderful story is not racist and the vernacular speech makes it very unique. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be taught in school because it is a renowned classic and it provides a valuable insight into the depths of the past. There are certainly instances where the book should not be taught, or maybe just portions of it. But this book can stimulate controversy and powerful emotions, which make school and discussions interesting. This book can be a very valuable tool, if not to understand great literature, but to understand the differences in society that were evident and still persist today.
Also, it is clear from Clemens' personal actions and view that he is not a racist, therefore it is evident that his novel isn't racist either. Twain's deftness as a satirist and his plea for human rights in other lectures and works make it clear that although the book may appear racist on the surface, just underneath it is a call for humanity. Twain is a skilled writer whose message is humanitarian. I kind of started my essay below...roughly

On our adventures with Huck and Jim, we are taken a bright journey through and to "the truly dark heart of the American Soul and of American History: slave country." This is a bright journey because of the brilliant writing that takes us there and the moral growth of a young child.
This is an adult novel written by an adult who grew up in the peak of slavery in America. Samuel Clemens, whose most famous pen name is Mark Twain, was born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri, the small riverside town that St. Petersburg is supposed to represent in the novel. At the time of Clemen's youth, Missouri was one of the 15 slave states of the South. Twain was continuously surrounded by the presence of slavery

Huck Finn

My opinions about the book are not as black and white as the critics we have read. I don't feel that the book itself is inherently racist, simply written about racist people in a racist time. As to whether it should be taught in schools, I don't think it should be straight out banned nor should it be required reading. It is not such an incredible work that everyone must read it. When the problems caused by the book outweigh its merit, it isn't really worth the trouble. However, in environments where it can be taught appropriately and does not cause tensions, there is no reason it should not be read. I plan to cite Jane Smiley to repute a few of her overstretched claims, and also T.S. Elliot and Lionel Trilling to counter some of their blind worship of the novel. I agree with much of Leo Marx's argument, and will use him to set up ideas. Within the book, I would like to look at both those passages that are celebrated as great anti-racist writing and those condemned as shamefully prejudiced. The Culture Shock movie will provide examples for when the book should be taught and when its just not worth it. Is this too wishy-washy a stance to take?