Essay, Research Paper: The Huckleberry Finn Controversy

It is my opinion that the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain should be taught in schools because this book is very well written and can teach many lessons. I think that the people in today s world, or maybe just the USA, try to be censor and shelter the children. I think that it is wrong to censor things, this book is supposedly wrong because it says the word nigger a lot and has death in it. I think that although the word nigger was used frequently in this book it showed the separation between the slaves and the owners and how Huck overcame this separation and saw through the societies views on niggers .
Racism is now a very big issue but when the book was written African Americans didn t have the rights they have today and racism didn t exist. Twain wrote this book not having to worry about racism. In our day and time they want to censor out the words like nigger but that really would be wrong because it wouldn t be realistic, people need to know what it was truly like. Sheltering people from the truth Is the worst thing you can do. If kids don t learn about how slavery was then they won t truly understand where racism comes from.
In the book there is much violence. "It s a dead man. Yes, indeedy naked, too. He s been shot in de back."(pg. 50) The book is better with violence because it becomes more interesting to the reader. It becomes more of a real life situation than just a fairy tale world where nothing goes wrong, because in real life things do go wrong and people do get shot and killed. It is hard to read these kinds of things with death that are gruesome but it helps form feelings for the characters. Also it was necessary for them to find the dead man so that Huck didn t have to worry about pap taking his money. In the scene where Jim finds pap we learn more about Jim and that he is a sensitive person and was cautious not to upset Huck by letting him see pap s body.
Many people could have been offended by the stereotypes in this book. For example, "I see it warn t no use wasting words you can t learn a nigger to argue."(pg. 78) In this example Huck stereotypes Jim as being a stupid nigger that can t learn anything. This is just one of the stereotypes of the book. Another stereotype that Jim uses is that of the Frenchman that should speak English. "Is a Frenchman a man? Well den dad blame it why doan he talk like a man?"(pg. 78) There is no problem with including stereotypes in the book because in real life people do stereotype things. The author could have easily left these stereotypes out but he wanted the book as realistic as possible.
Although there is much controversy about this book because of racism, stereotypes, and violence, the book needs to be taught because at one time (and maybe today) it is considered the first great American novel. Students can learn from Huck and his adventures of growing up and becoming a better person. Over the period of the book Huck learned that slaves are people to and that they also have feelings. Huck made what was to him the ultimate sacrifice, going to hell, for Jim. This book has every reason in the world to be taught in school and I can t find one good reason it shouldn t.