The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain. (1)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.
1884 (1982)

Why read it? Twain re-creates the times. He puts the N-word into the context of the times and its use conveys the hatred and the view of the Negro, not as a person, not as a human being, but as a thing, an object, property. His realistic use of the N-word in the context of the times is the reason the novel is so often censored. It is not the number of times the word is used but the vivid expression of the feelings of repulsion toward Negroes by white Southerners.

But the story IS hilarious. Huck's concealing bread and butter under his hat on a hot day, the butter oozing down his forehead and shocking Aunt Sally into thinking he has brain disease is a funny scene as is Pap's ranting against Negroes and falling into the tub of salt port. He kicks the tub in response to his humiliation and then writhes on the ground nursing his sore, bare toes. Also funny are the characters Jim and Huck meet as they raft down the Mississippi, the bamboozlers and the phonies.

The heart of the novel is Huck's wrestling with his conscience over whether to do the "right," i.e., legal, thing--turn Jim in as an escaped slave--or the "wrong," i.e., humanitarian thing, help him to become free. In the end, Jim was free anyway, set free by Miss Watson's will before she died and Tom Sawyer simply wanted to have the adventure of freeing Jim.

A vivid re-creation of the times.

Next: Sample ideas from the book.