Censorship Of Mark Twain
Collier pg.1 "The author of The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn is Samuel
Langhorn Clemens, who is more commonly known by
his pen name, Mark
Twain."(Lyttle pg.16) He was born in 1835 and died in
1910. Ever since The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were published there has
been a wide variety of
objections about the literature found in the book
which are represented as
racist or hatred, because "Twain Attributed a
stereotyped ^Negro^
dialect"(Cox pg.129). There has been acts of depriving
children to read
this great novel by removing it from most school libraries.
"The book is a
rich, deep text on many important issues: not only race and
slavery, but
violence, child abuse, alcoholism, and many other problems still
relevant to
American society. At the same time, it is an inventory of
essential values, such
as kindness, courage, and the need through moral
choices" (Koster pg.159).
Collier pg.2 Throughout the book Clemens
compares and contrasts many of the
social groups. Throughout the novel
Clemens portrays Caucasians as a more
educated group that is higher in
society compared to the African Americans
portrayed in the novel. The way
that Clemens portrays African Americans as foul
is through the conversations
that he assigns them. Their dialogue is composed of
nothing but broken
English. One example in the novel is this excerpt from the
conversation
between Jim ,the fugitive slave, and Huckleberry about why Jim ran
away,
where Jim declares, "Well you see, it ‘uz dis way. Ole missus-dat's
Miss
Watson-she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she
awluz
said she woudn' sell me down to Orleans." Although this is the spelling
of
how some Collier pg.3 Collier pg.3 African Americans from the south used
to
talk, Clemens applied this kind of speaking only to Blacks and not to
Whites
throughout the novel. There is not one sentence in the book spoken by
an African
American that is not made up of broken English. The second way
Clemens compares
people in the novel of different skin color is that all
Blacks in the book are
portrayed as stupid and uneducated. The second way
Clemens compares people in
the novel of different skin color is that all
Blacks in the book are portrayed
as stupid and uneducated. The most offensive
example is where the African
American character Jim is kept prisoner for
weeks while he is a fool in a
childish game that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn
play with him. The next two groups
Clemens compares are the red necks and
the educated. In the novel Clemens uses
interaction between backwoods and
more educated people as a important Collier
pg.4 part of the plot. The usage
of this mixing of two different social groups
is seen in two very
entertaining characters called the duke and the king. These
two characters
are red necks who pretend to be of an educated background to
trick naive
people along the banks of the Mississippi. At one point in the story
king and
the duke mess up in trying to act more educated when they to act out
a
"Shakespearean Revival." The duke totally messes up the lines
of
Hamlet saying, "To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin. That it
makes
calamity of so long life. For who fardel bear, till Birnam Wood do come
to
Dunshire, but that fear of something after death."Thirdly Clemens
compares
adults and children. Clemens shows adults as the usual group in
society, and
children as the unusual. In the story adults are not shown with
much info, but
children are shown as more imaginative. The two main examples
of this are when
Collier pg.5 Huckleberry fakes that he had died, and
when Tom and Huck
"help" Jim escape from captivity. This original feature
Clemens gives
to the children of the story adds a lot of humor to the plot.
Fourthly Clemens
compares women and men. Women in The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn are shown as
weak, while men are shown as more outgoing. The
example of a weak woman
character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is
Tom Sawyer's Aunt Sally. One
example was when Tom and Huck were collecting
wild animals to live in the shack
that Jim is being held prisoner in they
accidentally let loose some snakes in
Aunt Sally's house and Aunt Sally,
"...would just lay that work down, and
light out." The main reason that
Clemens shows women as less outgoing, is
because there are really only four
women characters in the novel, while all
major characters are men. And last
of all Clemens compares women and men.
Collier pg.6 Women in The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are shown as weak,
while men are shown as more
outgoing. The example of a weak woman character in
The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn is Tom Sawyer's Aunt Sally. One example was
when Tom and
Huck were collecting wild animals to live in the shack that Jim is
being held
prisoner in they accidentally let loose some snakes in Aunt Sally's
house and
Aunt Sally, "...would just lay that work down, and light
out." The main
reason that Clemens shows women as less outgoing, is because
there are really
only four women characters in the novel, while all major
characters are men.
In conclusion Instead of the book being banned the book
should be studied
with works on slavery, African American history, rights, and
many other
things that were believed as bad Collier pg.7 acts in the book. Twain
was
only writing what he saw and what was going on in those times. He didn't
mean
to write a book that contained what is believed to be racist acts, on
purpose
to promote he just wanted to make a book that people could enjoy not to
fight
about.