Immediately after the book was published, it was banned in Concord, Massachusetts, and has been banned several times since then from libraries because of what some viewed as inappropriate content.
This novel, written by Samuel Clemens — under the pen name Mark Twain, chronicles the adventures of two young white boys and an escaped black slave who sail the Mississippi River on a raft. Huck Finn, a rebellious teenager, fakes his own death to escape an alcoholic father and throughout the book challenges the mores of his society. Some Americans did not view Huck as a positive role model for young readers. Immediately after publication, the book was banned on the recommendation of public commissioners in Concord, Massachusetts, who described it as racist, coarse, trashy, inelegant, irreligious, obsolete, inaccurate, and mindless.
Indeed, the book became a bestseller. By it had sold 10 million copies; more than forty different editions have been printed in the United States alone. In general, the language is considered an accurate representation of that spoken by rural populations in the pre—Civil War South. Alleged racist content has been the reason most often cited for banning or challenging Huck Finn , particularly since and the rise of the civil rights movement in the United States.
Since the s, the use of Huck Finn in schools and libraries has been challenged in a number of states. Twain supporters contend that the author was anything but racist and insist that the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a satire in which Twain sought to highlight the hypocrisy of the society in which he grew up. Defenders of the book also insist that Jim comes across as having more common sense and as being more talented than either Huck or his best friend, Tom Sawyer.
Leonard, Thomas Tenney, Thadious M. Sign In or Create an Account. Advanced Search. User Tools. Sign In. Skip Nav Destination. James S. Leonard ; James S. Leonard is Professor of English at The Citadel.
Thomas Tenney Thadious M. This Site. Thomas Tenney ; Thomas Tenney. Davis Thadious M. Duke University Press. This content is made freely available by the publisher. It may not be redistributed or altered. All rights reserved.
Publication date:. Cite Icon Cite. Edited by: James S. Buy This Book. Thomas A. Tenney Thomas A. In his work he both depicts and criticizes the society in which he grew up and what was typical of it back then: slavery, violence and bigotry cf.
Pettit Sloane 3. He was the sixth of seven children. Thus, he grew up with a different treatment of whites and blacks. Racist attitudes were nothing unusual for the young Mark Twain cf. Gribben 1. When Twain was a young man, his views were racist. For example, in , aged 18, he wrote a letter to his mother from New York in which he stated:. Statements like that which would be marked as unmistakably racist nowadays were normal for whites of that time.
In , Twain started his career as a journalist, after he had gathered experience in several other jobs like printer, steamboat pilot, miner and many more which had brought him insight into several kinds of different people. From to and from to he traveled the world, including countries like France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Switzerland, Germany, Palestine and Egypt cf.
Kirk This surely played a part in contributing to change his views towards other people. Another important factor concerning this issue was his marriage with Olivia Langdon who he married in Olivia's family was not only deeply religious but also reformist and abolitionist cf.
Loving His later statements about racial issues proved his change of mind. For example, when he traveled to Australia in , he criticized the treatment of Aboriginals by whites there. He felt ashamed for slavery in his own country and never owned a slave. Twain even had black friends which was not common for white southerners at that time. Indeed, I know it. Mark Twain turned away from 19th century romanticism to realism. Bell Twain intended to write a novel in which he could portray the society in which he had grown up.
This paper shall help to understand the novel's message, by introducing some biographical facts about Clemens on the one hand, and the historical context in which it was written on the other hand. Furthermore, it shows how the novel's perception, which has always been controversial, has changed over the years. My aim is to explain to the reader why Twain's best-known novel is not racist. Hoffman This is not the only autobiographical element which can be found in the novel; the core element of the whole story took place in reality: In Hannibal, there was a boy called Tom Blankenship who was friends with a runaway slave.
Sloane The novel alludes to the fact, that it was written years after the American Revolution and alludes to the fact that Clemens was disappointed about the political situation in the United States. Thus, the situation for African-Americans had not really improved.
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