Should Huckleberry Finn Be Taught In Schools

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“The adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, by Mark Twain is arguably the most controversial book ever written. The book has been banned from schools and libraries for different reasons. The repetition of the word nigger is the main issue for most of the critics, teachers and students who do not like the novel. In my opinion one word can make a book bad or racist. This book should be taught anywhere the students can fully grasp the concept and are mature enough to understand the novel. Huckleberry Finn is an anti-racist book that teaches acceptance of different races and un-likely friendships. This book should be taught because it bring awareness to problems in society, and teaches students to accept other peoples concepts of race, religion, and …show more content…
A young black teenager from a video that interviews students and teachers and videos about the novel says “I’m immune to the word I have heard it too many time to be worried about who thinks what about me, but when the fact that its bringing down my culture and my people and insecure black people feel the effects of that I don’t like that.” (Culture Shock) This is one of the many people who feel this way about the book. The irony of the argument, is that twain agrees with them, this is why he writes a novel about a young white boy gets to see that it is wrong to do such. Of course the word nigger is going to be used often, the books setting (time) was before the civil war when slavery and being racist was the right thing to do. Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua a black woman who is a Mark Twain scholar who says twain used the word nigger for realism. For a lot of people the story did not have realistic characters the book would not be classic. Chadwick believes through reading Huckleberry Finn, we learn our own views on slavery, racism, and mistreatment. In an interview Chadwick says “In education we have come to the notion as parents, that we do not want our children to suffer, we want them to learn and to have a happy time in their lives and therefore it should be painless. I worry about that because, if we go back learning as never been painless...” (Culture …show more content…
According to “The case against Huck Finn” John H. Wallace says “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is the most grotesque example of racist trash ever written”(Wallace 309). He says the book causes an emotional block for the kids who are offended by the dialect of Huckleberry Finn. This is a true statement, it means the students were not ready to be exposed to Huckleberry Finn. There are a lot of things in Huckleberry Finn that should not be taught to immature students. For example, Huck talks about praying and it reveals he does not understand religion, “She told me to pray, and whatever I asked for I would get” he goes on to say “I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t the widow get back her silver snuff-box that was stole?” (Twain 23)Readers who do not understand the concept of praying or are not very aware with religion would not understand what twain is saying about Huck. This quote reveals how young Twain is not in age, but in morality and spirituality. Twain says “I wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn for adults exclusively, and it always distresses me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean...” (Culture shock) Twain believes that the novels are meant to for a more
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