Since it was first published in the United States in 1885, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been surrounded by controversy. The book was considered literary garbage during the last few years of Mark Twain’s life (11). In 1910 it became known as a timeless American classic. Thanks to praise from notable novelists such as Ernest Hemingway (3), and T.S. Eliot (5) the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn made the list of Great American Novels.
However, the companion novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was kept away from us in school. It was almost blasphemous to even mention it, which we did whenever Tom Sawyer came up. By high school the very existence of Huckleberry’s story was becoming a myth itself.
After college, in 2010 I hunted down a copy in the local library and was given a weird look by the librarian for checking it out. “Are you reading this for school?” she asked me. This furthered my desire to understand what was so dangerous about this book! I read it once then, and again before typing this essay. My perception of the novel has changed with age, but I enjoyed the story both times. Now I encourage other people to read it despite of and because of the controversial nature of Mark Twain’s masterpiece.
The reason readers turn their noses up at the thought of reading the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn vary, but they all center around racism. Many people, black people especially, believe that Mark Twain was a racist. Therefore his masterpiece must be as well. It’s not that black readers shy away from the uncomfortable topic of slavery, but it’s believed that a white man writing about slavery so close to the Civil War could not possibly have been sympathetic or respectful to our ancestral history. I’m here to tell you otherwise.
Was Mark Twain a raciest?
Now I can’t speak of Mark Twain personally. I never met the man because he died in 1910, long before I was born. But the use of the infamous “N-word”, as well as other dehumanizing terminology towards non-white people throughout the story has caused the novel to be shunned as racist rhetoric, and it’s author to be called trashy.
This argument by Peaches Henry, scholar of the University of Texas and President of the Waco NAACP chapter, sums up the argument against the study of this novel in school. (12)
“To dismiss the word's recurrence in the work as an accurate rendition of nineteenth century American linguistic conventions denies what every black person knows: far more than a synonym for slave, "nigger" signifies a concept. It conjures centuries of specifically black degradation and humiliation during which the family was disintegrated, education was denied, manhood was trapped within a forced perpetual puerilism, and womanhood was destroyed by concubinage. If one grants that Twain substituted "nigger" for "slave," the implications of the word do not improve; "nigger" denotes the black man as a commodity, as chattel.”– (9)
The above quote against the use of the word and the novel is the exact reason why I argue that this book should be read and studied by mature readers. Yes, the “n-word” is degrading, demeaning, dehumanizing and ugly, and this book tells you exactly why that is. Reading it in its original context illustrates exactly why we still hate it to this day.
The book is set in 1835, 50 years before the novel was published in the U.S. in1885. The Civil War that freed the slaves occurred somewhere in-between;(1861-1865). (11)
Twain uses language to paint a picture of this time and place in history. The story is told from the first person perspective of Huckleberry Finn, a dirt poor boy who has been all but orphaned and lives a feral life in the woods off what he can catch, gather, and steal. These are the words he knows for interacting with the peoples in his life. Nigger isn’t the only dehumanizing descriptor used. Huck casually notes bucks and wenches watching him. There is talk of Injuns, and mulattoes and any number of terms for other people I may not recognize. Not once is a black person, or any person of color, referred to as a man or woman. Not once is a black child called by his name. To Huckleberry they are simply adjectives, but to us it’s a picture of what our ancestors lived with every day for two hundred years.
I do not agree with editing out the language from historical literature books less we accidently “white-wash” all of the diversity that existed in this time and place as television so often does. Changing the language would change the story and affect its authenticity. This novel is nothing if not authentic.
I will agree however that the use of the n-word and other racial descriptors destroys the books usefulness as children’s literature. In my experience any attempt to read this book in middle grades or high school classrooms would be a disaster. The lesson is lost on immature minds.
Both times I’ve read the novel in my free time. I was not in a classroom setting reading aloud among a mixed group of my peers. The result for me was being able to focus on and understand the story. I completely stopped saying the “N-word” in jest around other black people. The word became more serious to me after reading it in its original context.
Origins of two separate but parallel cultures.
Black readers may avoid this novel for fear that it disrespects the memories of our ancestors. I recall being afraid to read about the character Jim, certain that he would be displayed as the “dumb nigger” trope you see on old black and white movies.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn shows the black slaves the way white people saw them at the time. The slaves in the book are superstitious, suspicious and ignorant of the world beyond the towns and villages they lived in. This may be counter to the romantic image we try to create of our ancestors today, but there was a purpose to it.
We all know that the slaves were denied secular education. They used their superstitions as a way to have some since of control over their lives. Their beliefs in magic, witches, and other super natural things carried over from their long lost African heritage through the stories they told each other. With these stories they created an entirely different world among themselves - one that white people gladly stayed out of because they didn’t understand it or believe in it.
This was the origin of black culture. The blacks talked differently, behave differently, and had totally different beliefs than the whites they lived among. They developed a language and society that, while still overseen by white people, was separate from them. This common story kept them strong and connected to each other despite the everyday fear and their uncertain futures.
Good Slavery
Another concern people often express about this novel is that Mark Twain only writes about the “nice” white families with “house slaves” who were treated “well”. He rarely if ever delves into the horrors of plantation slavery.
This argument misses the point of the very issue Twain is addressing in the novel. People often said, and still say today, that some slaves were treated well and enjoyed their captivity. Here Twain shows that there was no “good slavery.”
Jim belongs to Miss Watson, a sweet kind old Christian woman. She treats him well in that she doesn’t beat him like the masters down south might. But when she finds herself in need of some cash she talks to a trader about selling him for eight-hundred dollars knowing he might very well end up in the deep south on a plantation. She does not respect Jim as “a member of the family” as the argument suggests. He is property. Jim fears loosing contact with his wife and children forever - his real family. So Jim runs away in the hopes of finding a paying job in the free states were he can earn enough money to buy his independence and his family.
Huckleberry Finn
At the beginning of their relationship Huckleberry has no empathy for Jim. He cannot imagine the sadness and loneliness of Jim. He, who has so much freedom, can not imagine the frustration of a grown man who has no right to his wife, his kids, nor even the clothes on his back.
“Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped run away, coming right out flat footed and saying he would steal his children – children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man who had done me no harm. I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.” - (1).
This is the main source of tension in the first act. Should Huck turn Jim in? Not for the three hundred dollar reward but for the morality of it. Huck can only imagine the harm he’s caused to his white neighbors whom he is financially wounding by helping a slave escape.
Huckleberry, and all the other white children, have been taught to think of ‘niggers’ as different than human. To the children, the slaves are treated like family pets – pets than can occasionally be sold for money and should not be expected to think for themselves. As a result Huckleberry is shocked to learn that Jim has such hopes and dreams as running-away and seeking his own life.
“It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn’t ever dared talk such in his life before.” (1)
Twain shows that this actually puts a burden on the morals of these children, who are raised to be good Christians, but are asked to ignore the hypocrisy of adult behaviors.
Through Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer we see that southern children had few freedoms when it came to thoughts and ideas. Everything for them was black and white. Were they going to heaven or hell? Were they good or were they bad? There was nothing in between. Generations of being taught that they, as good Christians, were responsible for the herding, domestication, and upkeep of an entire race of people resulted in them being blind to those people as human beings.
Huckleberry, our protagonist is not like the other children. He was been raised outside of civilization, apart from the rules and norms of Christianity. He is a simple boy guided by his instincts. In this way he is truly a free thinker and comes up with his own moral code. It’s those instincts and morals that can see the humanity in Jim. Within the same chapter as the above quotes, Huck decides not to turn Jim in despite his belief that it’s the right thing to do.
“-what’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right, and ain’t no trouble to do wrong and the wages is just the same?” (1)
Halfway through the story it’s already clear that to Huck home is a raft, on a slow moving river with Jim at the helm and trouble at their backs. By the end of the story Huckleberry is willing to risk going to hell to save Jim from slave hunters.
Jim
The first time I read this novel I found Jim's ignorance pitiful, almost laughable as it’s often used for humor in the novel. His not knowing what a king is, and his not understanding the concept of foreign languages made the idea of him going off unaided to find his fortune as a free man seem impossible.
“Is a Frenchman a man? Then why don’t he talk like one!” – (1)
Now a little wiser I read the chapter with the good-natured humor Twain probably meant by it. Jim reasons about the same way my grandfather used to.
My grandfather grew up as an illiterate sharecropper in southeast Georgia. He raised six kids working as a handyman and janitor during the Civil Rights Era. He was a practical and down to earth man. He had no use for metaphors and fables. I hear his voice when Jim speaks. Jim doesn’t need to know about kings and foreign languages to make it in the world - just like my grandfather didn’t need to understand dinosaurs to build the house he and his family lived in.
What Jim has in abundance is what we call “common sense”; even Huck occasionally acknowledges this.
“Well he was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger. – (1)
Though that statement is condescending by twenty-first century standards it is important to know that Huckleberry prizes common sense above most other forms of intelligence. This endears Jim to Huck.
Jim never tries to command respect from Huck but he does manage to make Huck feel remorseful for his actions in a way Miss Watson and the other adults have not been able to do. He makes Huck think things through without trying to teach or control him.
While Huckleberry had no malice towards Jim, he had to do the work himself to undo the brainwashing of his society. He is forced through his situation to see Jim as a person and a friend.
By the end of the book Huckleberry has more in common with Jim than he does with Tom Sawyer. Though Jim has no authority over him, Huck slowly begins to feel friendship towards him. The result of this is gradually seeing their situation through Jim’s eyes. They are both fighting for their freedom. If one fails then they both are lost.
Don’t get me wrong. I hold no delusion that this will be an overall change in Huckleberry. This feeling of kinship probably will not extend to any other black people Huckleberry may encounter in the future. Jim is part of Huckleberry’s tribe now, but in Huck’s mind Jim is probably just “one of the good ones”, or his “black best friend”. Is Huck likely speak out against the institution of slavery as whole? Is Huck going help other run-aways in the future? Does Huckleberry learn to respect Jim as he would a white adult man? Why is it that in 2021 black Americans are still trying to dispel this illusion of “other-ism” in our quest for equal respect?
It’s not all so serious!
I don’t want to spoil the whole story. Most of the above summery is only from the segments of the first half of the book. My goal in writing this essay is to encourage those skittish about reading this masterpiece to give it a try. I want to assure you that it is not the usual torture tale stories from this era tend to be.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is just that, an adventure! Jim and Huck are fugitives on a hand-made raft trying to escape society. The wilderness and the river are filled with conmen, bandits, hunters, and murders. Our heroes run into many of them! Everyone they meet might mean safety, riches, or death! And each encounter changes Huckleberry’s outlook on people, religion, and the world in general.
In Conclusion
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a wonderful, complex, and exciting novel. Anyone interested in geography, history, or language will find this book just as interesting as someone studying how to write a good story full of tension and drama.
In 1863 Samuel Langhorne Clemens signed his name as Mark Twain for the first time. The pseudonym is a riverboat term meaning “two fathoms deep” connoting water barely navigable (11). This name is very appropriate for an author of such a book that on its surface appears to be a simple story of an outcast in the 18th century south; such an accurate window into such a controversial time must in itself be very hard to navigate.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published during the Jim Crow south and humanized a black man as one of the main characters. Yet it wasn’t erased from history. It’s still being talked about today.
I hope readers understand that this story is a mosaic of origins. Each tile displays a reason for why things are the way they have been. Zooming out shows the full picture of southern culture. Time moves slowly in the south, and we shouldn’t forget where we’ve come from or how far we’ve come to improve ourselves. The fear and disrespect Black Americans deal with daily in twenty-first century is directly related to generations of our ancestors living separate lives right next to each other. We still seem to be speaking different languages, and seeing different meanings behind symbols, gestures and political movements.
Just like Huckleberry, white America had to shake itself out of centuries of brainwashing to see the cruelty of slave culture. There were many people who saw the light through their religious beliefs as illustrated in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin - another controversial book I encourage every American to read. But for most slave owners it took a war and interference from the federal government to make them relinquish their human property. This is why I respect that Mark Twain doesn’t use Christianity as the crutch for morality in this novel. Huckleberry helps Jim fully expecting to go to hell for it. Huck comes to his own conclusions as a free and independent thinker.
I encourage black American readers to have pride in how far our ancestors had to come. Jim may not have had a secular education but he was smart in the ways of survival. He had ambition and drive just like so many real people who took that leap and started from absolutely nothing in a world that hated them. And they survived!
It is important to acknowledge the struggles of the past as black and white cultures are still outgrowing the shackles of four hundred years of American slave culture (13). I hope one day the peoples that have molded The South into the rich tapestry of diverse histories that it is will have enough respect for each other that this book won’t be so controversial in the future. However, it will always be a really good story about two guys on an epic adventure that everyone, black, white or otherwise, should read.
END
References
1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 1884 Bantam Dell, New York, NY
2. Sparknotes
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/huckfinn/summary/
3. Ernest Hemmingway on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-nov-14-la-ca-mark-twain-20101114-story.html
4. https://freebooksummary.com/ernest-hemingway-on-huckleberry-finn-1395
5. T.S. Elliot on The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn
6. https://buzzography.wordpress.com/2018/02/27/ts-eliot-on-huck-finn-and-mark-twain-and-more/
8. https://homepages.wmich.edu/~acareywe/huck.html
9. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/teachers/huck/essay.html
10. https://www.historynet.com/civil-war-facts
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain
13. https://www.britannica.com/summary/
https://www.thoughtco.com/mark-twain-about-slavery-in-huckfinn-740149
E. W. Kemble (1861–1933) - illustrator, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://medium.com/@jameslewishuss/huckleberry-finn-the-epic-of-american-literature-d43336461ff9
Mark Twain, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://dcc.newberry.org/?p=14412
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