Printable View
I believe this book deals with a series of a low grade of mortality; it is couched in the language of rough dialect, and all through its pages there is a systemic use of bad grammer and an employement of rough, coarse, inelegant expression. The book also contains racial slurs and belittles racial designations. This book is humiliating and insulting to blacks. This book is racist for both the persuasive use of the word nigger and portryals of blacks, stereotypical and demeaning.
He who laughs last does not get the jokes as fast. ;)
Huck Finn was written partly in response to literary critics who said (in not so many inelegant terms) that Tom Sawyer sucked and that (in general) Americans had no unique language. The literary elite shunned Twain as a ruffian who had no GRAMMAR (BTW- if you protest its abuse, please use spell check, lest you look the fool {a way to remember how to spell it "Your Gramma would not let you use such grammar"}) If you read the introduction, it was an IN YOUR FACE to such snobs, so RE-read and smile with the rest of us. :goof:
YES, it was (and still can be misconstrued as meaning to be) insulting to blacks,[BTW2 African-Americans is the politically correct term], but realize that Huck is the character who embodies "employement of rough, coarse, inelegant expression". Twain PURPOSELY used this to make a social commentary on America of the time, while having a secret dig at folks who did nothing to stop racism, just let it exist with an "if you don't say anything about it then the problems do not exist" mentality. Twain LIVED in the area in which he set the story and EXPERIENCED racism and was REPULSED BY IT! He wanted Americans to see the HUMANITY of a socially outcast group who were formerly slaves and still being treated as such. How can one discuss (and change!) a problem without using the words?
Just because you WRITE a word does not make you automatically AGREE with a term. If that were the case, by that logic: YOU are a racist by writing the N-word; liberal political commentator Al Franken would himself be a big fat idiot AND a right wing nut, :rage: ; Aldoph Hitler would have been Jewish, Senator Ted Kennedy would be a liar and Malcolm X would have been a slave-oppressing, negro hating, blue-eyed white man. (some of those have been explored as being true)
So .................
LOOK at the book again in this light and you could find yourself being a bit more forgiving of a great American novelist.