Essay, Research Paper: The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn 2

Every day society is imposed upon by awful messages. Not one day passes in which we
do not see something terrible or obscene on television, and most people have been
exposed to the usage of racial slurs. It is hard to understand why a book should be
banned if it has this subject matter in extremely small amounts. The decision should be
left up to the potential reader of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because making the
book required would be just as ridiculous as completely banning it. The Adventures
Huck Finn is an outstanding novel with absolutely no reason at all to be banned at any
school across the globe.
This novel by the extraordinary author Mark Twain is an exceptional piece of
literature. The book itself may have a few credits to its disadvantage, but those credits
against it are so minor that they should not be taken into account.
One of the downsides of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the usage of
certain racial slurs. The word nigger appears 189 times, but it should not make a
substantial impact on a reader. This word itself may be quite offensive; particularly in
the beginning of the book, but towards the middle and end, the racial term is not used to
degrade people of the African American race.
The most prevalent misuse of the word nigger is in the introductory part of the
novel. This racial slur is mostly abused by Huck s father, Pap. Pap represents the
average misinformed redneck. In each appearance that Pap had in the book, he had
criticizing words for whatever was going on around him. For example, he was making
fun of the North because black people were allowed to have freedom. Pap had many
stereotypical views. None of those should be taken greatly into consideration seeing as
how Pap was intoxicated in all of his appearances throughout the book. Pap had a sever
alcohol problem. He would have spent every last dime that he or Huck had to buy
alcoholic products. His behavior not only mad him quite drunk but abusive as well.
Huck was held like a prisoner by Pap, and Pap even almost killed him once. Pap
shouldn t be taken seriously by the potential readers of Huck Finn.
People who read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have to keep in mind that
the time setting was in the pre-Civil War era. During this time period, may people had
the common misconception that black people were merely property. The slaves were
hardly ever treated as human beings. One character in the book realized eventually that
the slave character, Jim, was a person. The character that realized this was the main
character of the book: Huck. Huckleberry not only began to think of Jim as a person but
as a friend also. This is one example of how the novel has no intent to demean.
Abuse is a major controversial topic that occurs within this publication. Once
again it is Pap who demonstrates abusive behavior in one form or another. Pap abused
people, alcohol, and the list just goes on. Huck was enrolled in school, but Pap made
him quit just because he didn t believe that Huckleberry should be more intelligent that
his own father. Pap later became abusive due to this. Pap wanted everything to go his
way, and he would become abusive when it didn t. Pap was out for some money that
Huck had gotten, but his son would not give it to him, this made Pap extremely angry and
he abused many of the people involved in the situation, especially Huck. Holding Pap s
behavior against the book in general would be foolish. It is quite obvious that Mark
Twain wasn t too fond of Pap s chatter. Pap was portrayed as a very bad person
throughout the story, and he ended up dying. From Pap s end character placement
(death), I think only a positive message can be derived. The overall concept of Pap s
mistakes is that in the long-run people reap what they sow.
Every single unfavorable message that a person could extract from this book adds
up to be nothing of much significance. Whether or not a person decides to read the novel
should be based on their choice. Certain people could easily be offended by some of the
book s controversial topics, and that s why reading the novel should be completely left
up to the reader. There is not one good reason not to opt to read The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn; however, the option should be left open.