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Should Huck Finn Be Banned in Schools Free Essay Example
Should Huck Finn be taught in schools? This question has actually been commonly discussed over the past years and it still is till this day. Lots of say that the book must be prohibited from schools due to the fact that of the racial comments in the book; people declare that it could offend the youth, however all the book does is inform the youth about the American history of slavery.
The book does utilize the racial term “Nigger”, and today that word is really upsetting and offensive to use, but in the past that wasn’t the case.
It was a term utilized to describe African Americans at that time. Twain used that word because that is the way he understood it to be, there was no chance he could have understood that it would become a bad term. Anyone who understands anything about the history of that time would know that.
The book is a great piece of history.
Even if a book has some offending content is not enough of a factor to prohibit the book. The general value of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a lot more crucial than any offending language it might contain. It demonstrates how the American public thought back then, and their lifestyle. It was simply the way they were raised. In Chapter 32 of Huckleberry Finn when Auntie Sally asks if anybody was harmed in a steamboat mishap, Huck responds, “No’m. Eliminated a nigger tho”(Twain 167). The subject is then closed because no “individuals” were harmed, and in their minds, nobody was. That is something that can not be expressed in a book or a teacher with the exact same sensation of authenticity.
Another reason that the book should be taught in schools is that we see the bond of friendship between the white boy, Huck, and the runaway slave, Jim. Throughout the book Huck faces the dilemma of whether or not to turn Jim in. He starts to see that, even if Jim is a slave, he is a person and he has emotions just like Huck does. When Huck and Jim are in the raft and Huck hears Jim crying about his family he thinks to himself “and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n.” This shows how Huck starts to see Jim more as a human and less as a slave.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a great book that shows the history of the South in the time of Mark Twain. It shows the friendship of two boys as they travel down the river experiencing life together. Huck Finn should be taught in schools to help educate kids on the history of the time.
