# Huck Finn challenged AGAIN??? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 29, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957 "2003-11-29T20:29:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/61 "2003-12-01T03:53:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mic84 \* > \*\*OK, then, so we agree here. \*\*Yes, despite the fact that your passage doesn’t necessarily support this. > [@](#): > > \*\*(As a side note:You claim that this thinking changes. I don’t remember anything that indicates this.) > > As to whether it’s irony on Twain’s part or not - I addressed this already as best as I could in previous posts. No point bringing this up unless you’d like to address the specific points I already raised about this. \*\* Christ, did you actually read the book? The primary conflict of the novel is resolved when Huck, in recognizing Jim’s humanity, decides he would rather go to hell than betray his friend. This is a shift in Huck’s thinking, dontcha think? Remember how he was planning to turn ol’ Jim in? It being the principal dilemma he wrestles with, I’m not sure how you could miss this. But given your conclusions regarding Twain’s real beliefs (and that Huck is simply his proxy), I guess I’m not surprised. As best I can interpret it, your argument seems to be that if any character he wrote could be said to have a common belief with Twain, then that means it’s reasonable to assume that all characters speak for him. This is simply ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![LilyoftheValley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/54ee81/32.png) [@LilyoftheValley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilyoftheValley)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/62 "2003-12-01T04:19:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shade \* > \*\*WARNING: While reading is in many ways good, if you automatically adopt the morals and language of every main character you read about you will be an idiot, offensive to many people, and have missed the point entirely. \*\* 😃 That’s sig-worthy, **Shade**. May I use it? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/63 "2003-12-01T04:21:45Z")
> [@](#): > > First, a question - did anyone here who is speaking in appreciation of Huckleberry Finn only read the book because it was assigned reading in a literature class? Is it that you would not have been introduced the book and never read the book had it not been assigned? _raises hand_ Folks, great literature is not supposed to make us _comfortable_. It’s supposed to make us _think_. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/64 "2003-12-01T04:25:11Z")
I’ve read the damn thing more times than I can count. It’s one of my favorite books…and yes, I _did_ read it before it was ever assigned. I was a power nerd in High school. ---
**Author:** ![lilbtagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4491bb/32.png) [@lilbtagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lilbtagna)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/65 "2003-12-01T04:32:03Z")
> [@](#): > > First, a question - did anyone here who is speaking in appreciation of Huckleberry Finn only read the book because it was assigned reading in a literature class? Is it that you would not have been introduced the book and never read the book had it not been assigned? I’ve only been lurking in this thread until now, but I had to say that I read the book completely on my own when I was in the sixth grade and I absolutely loved it. I didn’t understand everything in it, but it was abundantly clear even to an 11 year old the thoughts and ideas that Mark Twain was trying to get across to his audience. I read it again on my own in the eighth grade and grew to appreciate it even more. Then, in the eleventh grade, it was assigned reading for my class and I enjoyed every minute of it. ---
**Author:** ![mic84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@mic84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mic84)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/66 "2003-12-01T05:24:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stratocaster \* > Christ, did you actually read the book? You talkin’ to me? > [@](#): > > The primary conflict of the novel is resolved when Huck, in recognizing Jim’s humanity, decides he would rather go to hell than betray his friend. This is a shift in Huck’s thinking, dontcha think? Remember how he was planning to turn ol’ Jim in? Primary conflict of the novel? Please… Jim tells Huck that he ran off, and asks Huck not to tell anybody. Huck’s reaction: > [@](#): > > “Well, I did. I said I wouldn’t, and I’ll stick to it. Honest INJUN, I will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum–but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t a-going to tell, and I ain’t a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le’s know all about it.” Huck then passes on the first opportunity to turn Jim in in chapter IX. In the part about damnation, he says outright that he doesn’t a genuine intention to turn Jim in. > [@](#): > > but deep down in me I knowed it[expressed intention to turn Jim in] was a lie, and He knowed it. So at which point do you figure _did_ Huck intend to turn Jim in? If anything, this theme is about Huck’s realizing that his personal ethics trump external morality. Nothing to do with anyone’s humanity. > [@](#): > > It being the principal dilemma he wrestles with, I’m not sure how you could miss this. But given your conclusions regarding Twain’s real beliefs (and that Huck is simply his proxy), I guess I’m not surprised. As best I can interpret it, your argument seems to be that if any character he wrote could be said to have a common belief with Twain, then that means it’s reasonable to assume that all characters speak for him. This is simply ridiculous. That may be, but that’s not what I’m saying. The examples that I’ve given of the characters “speaking for Mark Twain” look somewhat forced in the context(E.g.,could the colonel come up with an aphorism worthy of, well, Mark Twain, on the spot?). Since the quote in question looks very good(for Twain’s times, anyway), it is reasonable to think that Mark Twain agreed with the statement - as he did with the other statements of similar nature in the book. You may disagree, of course, but, really, you know as much about what Mark Twain thought on the topic as I do. ---
**Author:** ![j\_kat\_251](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/71c47a/32.png) [@j\_kat\_251](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j_kat_251)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/67 "2003-12-01T06:10:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Flowers for Algernon BANNED for “showing” that less intelligent people may have a lower quality of life. Although IIRC he was happier as a labourer than as a genius. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/68 "2003-12-01T07:08:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by amarinth \* > \*\*It’s still going to be in the library, it’s still going to be available to all students who wish to check it out. Why does it need to be required reading? \*\* Because it’s an important part of American literature. If you’re going to teach a class on American literature you should include it as part of the curriculum. Marc ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/69 "2003-12-01T08:13:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\*Having had a look at the list, I have to ask… > > What kind of moronic school administrator would put **Sex** by _Madonna_ on ANY reading list?\*\* It’s unlikely (and probably untrue) that it was ever in a school library, or on a reading list. Its presence in _public_ libraries has been challenged, though, which is what gets it on the list. ~kfl, intrepid Ma-Fa extraordinaire Also president of the Official Unofficial Guy Ritchie Fan Club ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/70 "2003-12-01T15:28:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LilyoftheValley \* > \*\*😃 That’s sig-worthy, **Shade**. May I use it? \*\* Of course. I’d be honored. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/71 "2003-12-01T16:46:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lord Ashtar \* > \*\*And reading a little farther, I see that **A Wrinkle in Time** and **A Light in the Attic** are both on the list. > > Shel fucking Silverstein? What’s this country comming to? \*\* Sorry about the hijack, but I’m always amazed that Shel Silverstein _isn’t_ banned more often (I’m not saying he should be, just that I’m surprised). I know, I know, he wrote _The Giving Tree_, but he also wrote songs. Lots of them. Some were even hits (_Cover of the Rolling Stone_ and _A Boy Named Sue_, for example. But here are the titles of some other songs by him. And the lyrics pretty much match the titles, believe me. Quaaludes Again Get My Rocks Off Lookin’ for Pussy Penicillin Penny Polly in a Porny That is just a short list. He was a pretty raunchy guy. Drew cartoons for Playboy for ages, some of them pretty explicit (and funny, too). ---
**Author:** ![Bucky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Bucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bucky)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/72 "2003-12-01T18:38:02Z")
This is a little self-serving as I contributed a few chapters to one of his books, but Nicolas Karolides has a number of books on censorship for a variety of reasons. If you want to know more on the subject, his work can be a good place to start. HF is number one in American history for the sheer number of times people have tried to ban it. Other reasons include miscegenation, anti-feminiest for “invisibility” of female characters, pro-gay, and bad grammar. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/73 "2003-12-01T19:52:48Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by amarinth_ > I don’t know. Which is one of the many reasons why I don’t teach literature. I do certainly remember reading many other books in lit classes (some that I liked, some that I didn’t) that didn’t single out students in the room for humiliation. Whatever, I should hope that at least one deals with the concept of empathy. Just about every work of great literature has been subject to challenge on the grounds that is offends someone. If you think that the other books in your lit classes didn’t single anyone out for humiliation, that may just be because you weren’t a member of the group which felt aggrieved. You might not consider, say, _Macbeth_, to be a work of literature which would single out anyone in the room and make them feel especially uncomfortable, but perhaps that’s just because you’re not a devout fundamentalist Christian who considers references to the occult (“Double, double, toil and trouble…”) to be dangerous, probably Satanic, and gravely harmful to one’s immortal soul. (I am of course assuming you’re not a fundamentalist Christian of that sort.) The inclusion of _Macbeth_ in public school curricula has in fact been challenged on those grounds. The point being, if you discard every work of literature which might possibly offend someone, no matter what general merit or literary greatness that work might possess, nor how reasonable the grievance may be, you won’t have anything to teach but mindless pap. (And _that_ would offend _me_, so I guess literature class will just have to become Nap Time.) ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/74 "2003-12-01T20:20:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\*And **Flowers for Algernon**??? What could possibly be offensive about that? It’s one of my favorite books. \*\* It depicts the soul-wrenching horror of the slow degeneration of a human mind. Impressionable students might get the idea that it’s bad to have mental handicaps or go through the final stages of Alzheimer’s, thus they must not be allowed to read the book. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/75 "2003-12-01T21:04:40Z")
> [@](#): > > “They were called this word while they were lynched; they were called this word while they were hung from the big magnolia tree.” [nitpick] Aren’t magnolias too short and brittle to use for a lynching? Wouldn’t oak work better? [/nitpick] Somewhat less snottily: > [@](#): > > “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” by Mildred D. Taylor, for … racism … > > “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, for … racism… Hell, YEAH, those include incidents of racism. It’s sorta the point. All I can do is roll my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![DeaganTheWolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DeaganTheWolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeaganTheWolf)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/76 "2003-12-01T22:46:15Z")
Sorry Dropzone, Magnolias get HUGE here in florida. WAY big enough to hang someone from. ---
**Author:** ![Sqube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@Sqube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sqube)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/77 "2003-12-02T00:34:34Z")
I just had to pitch in, as I am wont to do when I hear somebody expressing outrage over Huck Finn: **Shut the fuck up.** Sorry. That’s not what I really say, but I so frequently feel the urge to get that out of my system. I read Huck Finn as required reading in 9th grade. As the only African-American in a class full of white students. We didn’t feel the need for two weeks of preparation for the realities of racism, the teacher simply informed us that the word nigger was going to be used extensively. He then asked me if I would be offended by it. What did I say? “It’s a word.” And it is. I can’t believe people want to ban this book because Mark Twain had the audacity to write about _the reality of that time period_. People against the reading of the book? You might want to read that italicized part again. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/78 "2003-12-02T01:46:53Z")
A light in the Attic?!?!?!? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/79 "2003-12-02T02:13:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sqube \* > \*\*I just had to pitch in, as I am wont to do when I hear somebody expressing outrage over Huck Finn: > > **Shut the fuck up.** > > Sorry. That’s not what I really say, but I so frequently feel the urge to get that out of my system. I read Huck Finn as required reading in 9th grade. As the only African-American in a class full of white students. We didn’t feel the need for two weeks of preparation for the realities of racism, the teacher simply informed us that the word nigger was going to be used extensively. He then asked me if I would be offended by it. What did I say? “It’s a word.” And it is. I can’t believe people want to ban this book because Mark Twain had the audacity to write about _the reality of that time period_. > > People against the reading of the book? You might want to read that italicized part again. \*\* Reality of the period is right and I wonder what word the anti-Finns think that Twain _should_ have used. Should Huck have spoken only of “African-Americans,” or “blacks” or “brothers?” I think people forget that Twain was writing through the voice and the eyes of a _child_. A child who had been brainwashed from birth into certain assumptions and attitudes and who would have been _taught no other word_ than the N word. I suppose it’s a testimony to Mr. Clemons’ almost sublime use of irony in the book that people more than a century later are still getting whooshed by it. how any intelligent person can read the entire book and conclude anything other than that it is a deeply _anti_-racist statement is beyond me. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2003, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957/80 "2003-12-02T02:24:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shade \* > \*\*WARNING: While reading is in many ways good, if you automatically adopt the morals and language of every main character you read about you will be an idiot, offensive to many people, and have missed the point entirely. \*\* Randy Newman doesn’t like short people, and anybody who plays his record is infected with the dislike of short people also. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-challenged-again/215957.md?page=5)