Essay about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Should NOT...

Many books around the world have been banned because they are offensive. One example is Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a novel about the journey of a thirteen-year-old boy named Huck, who fabricates his own death to run away with an escaped slave named Jim. The two voyage in a raft along the Mississippi River to gain their individual freedom. In addition, Huck gains a new understanding about humanity. Huck Finn has been creating great controversy on both sides of the argument: to ban or to keep in the school curriculum. Currently â€Å"much debate has surrounded Mark Twain’s Huck Finn since its publication in 1885, but none has been more pervasive, explosive, and divisive than that surrounding the issue on race†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦show more content†¦Negroes do not like it in any book or play whatsoever, be the book or play ever so sympathetic in its treatment of the basic problems of the race. Even [if] the book or play is written by a Negro, they stil l [would] not like it† (Henry). In addition, John Wallace believes that the word â€Å"nigger† is so offensive that he rewrote the novel without the word â€Å"nigger.† Not only did Twain overuse the word â€Å"nigger† throughout the book, he additionally portrays blacks badly through negative and insulting stereotypes. Student Doron Flake discusses stereotypes that African Americans have â€Å"chained† to them at all times when he says, â€Å"Blacks are murderers, the rapists the gang-bangers, where everything that is negative is [sic] society, why do I have to go to school and be Jim too? Because whenever I read about the slave who is gullible and stupid, that [stereotype] becomes a reflection of me, too† (qtd. in Chadwick-Joshua xi). Doron does not want his fellow classmates to judge him based on how Twain describes and displays African Americans. Twain portrays the dehumanization of blacks throughout his novel. An example of Twains dehumanizing attitude towards African Americans occurs when Huck and Aunt Sally discuss the steamboat incident that causes an explosion: Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out: â€Å"It warnâ €™t the grounding -- That didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.† â€Å"Good gracious! anybody hurt? â€Å"No’m. Killed aShow MoreRelatedwisdom,humor and faith19596 Words   |  79 Pagesus feel superior, amidst our own ethnic group, to any supposed inferior group. Humor is also sometimes an inappropriate response to an event. Hearing of evils like the killing of an innocent person, the demeaning of a child, or the rape of a woman should elicit not humor but sorrow. As the Bible’s book of Ecclesiastes says, there is â€Å"a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.† Enlightening comments on the relationship of humor to wisdom were once made by Reinhold NiebuhrRead MoreLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pagesorganization is sound and the author does a superior job of presenting the structure of arguments. David M. Adams, California State Polytechnic University These examples work quite well. Their diversity, literacy, ethnic sensitivity, and relevancy should attract readers. Stanley Baronett. Jr., University of Nevada Las Vegas Far too many authors of contemporary texts in informal logic – keeping an eye on the sorts of arguments found in books on formal logic – forget, or underplay, how much of