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You have to look at the time the book was set in. It was set in the antibellum era where ppl if you like it or not did not treat each other equally. Heck people are not treated equally today. Huck Finn has historic value in that it depicted slavery as it was in all its pain and brutality.
My adopted grandfather came from the background of slaves and large plantations and such. He had to leave the south because he didn't wish any workers under him to be mistreated or to be treated badly. they burned a cross on his property and he left with his family and came to Canada. It by no means is more free here, we just have more space and don't notice or won't notice as much.
this is what i believe. i think nothing racist was ever meant but the culture was permeated with it and without meaning to things were said in the book that honestly if it was written now in this year would have been changed. not the value of the book but the way and the careful choice of wording.
nothing evil or cruel was intended at all. but for instance i heard the man that raised me as my father, he was raised in Canada after his father came from the deep south after the cross burning and he still i heard him talk in my opinion dreadfully bad about blacks.
he told me once that blacks are better in the boxing ring because of the way their skulls are made, they can take beatings better and survive. after i finished being sick in the bathroom i calmed down, realizing he in his ignorance meant it as a compliment. He would take his shoes off in respect if we were visiting a poor black man's home and he always talked to them with the deepest respect and care. it was just that he picked up some of the ambience and flavour of the generations of the wealthy south that matter of factly spoke a certain way, even if they released their slaves out of love.
so no i do not believe Samuel in any way meant to be racist and we should treasure his works because we need to face things as they were, not pretend we don't still deal with certain issues, be they politically correct or not. love overcomes all things as it did with Huck and Jim. That is all that matters. and one thing more, when i was little and had a nanny, she greatly influenced me in love of British and Celtic things. And when i went to the deep south on holiday my friends nannies greatly influenced them, all blue eyes and blonde girls. Their moms had owned golliwog dolls that they loved and took to bed with them. they are hideous looking representations of blacks and many still have them today. it is what is meant and we can go around book burning and saying this and that but we could be very wrong. many girls from that time not long ago still talk with the strange wordings their black nannies used and they love their nannies just as much as their own white parents.
saying that this Huckleberry Finn is rascist is like saying the Diary of Anne Frank support Nazism. :confused: people always think that just because a book talks about something it supports it. the same situation applies to The Giver, whom people think supports Euthanasia. you have to look past the ink (roughly one millionth of a milimeter) to the real meaning. Its not too hard folks. 'Nigger' was no more a bad word then, than 'people of color' is
now. 'People of color', particularly those below or near to the overty line, regularly call themselves 'niggers' the same as a white person would call a friend 'dude.' The concept of "Doublespeak" must at least be comprehended, if not accepted for anyone to fully understand literature.
On the matter of book burning and censorship, I'm in 8th grade and have read more books than most people 4x my age. Just because Battlefield Earth was written by the man who esentially founded Scienology (or whatever Mr. Hubbard called it) does not meen it should be banned because it ofend christians. I happen to disagree with Hubbard on the matter of religion, it does not make Battlefield Earth any less of a book. GUllivers Travels was banned in its day for ideals everyone on this forum (i can only hope) agree with. 1984 and Shogun are books that some would consider inapropriate for someone my age, but they are amung my favorite books, and 1984 has ideals in it that have completely altered my metaphysical philosophies. :argue: #1 amendment is freedom of speech, and in my opinion, constitutionally, book censorshipped should be reversed. It should be ilegal to stifle anyones opinion that that person has voiced in book form.
I think that censorship or basically blaming a book for inciting any sort of violence is an ill-aimed panacea.
I think that most `normal' well-adjusted people process some of the more disturbing information/literature/media out there and remain `normal'.
The minority ill-adjusted dysfunctional person will end up doing any number of anti-social acts if they go on living their life without any realisation that they need help, until they end up in jail or something. A book can be a convenient way out I suppose.
Kids who enact `revenge' or violence of some sort on their peers are disturbed and ill-adjusted and need help. They will find guns or violence or whatever else to express their outrage and anger. I think there is not enough prevention in place to staunch such need in the first place. Oh ya, but parents can blame the govt. on how their kids are turning out, blame school system etc.
People start believing that the gov'ts job is to protect them from disturbing things. People start forgetting how to make their own moral and value judgements, they don't have to because the gov't. is thinking for them.
That is disturbing. :)
I think that one has to take into account the premise of a book, why it was written.
Is it a non-fictional instruction manual?
Is it revisionist fiction history?
Is it an autobiographical memoir?
Thankfully there are books being written, even today, that are direct result of the current culture. So that in 100 years from now someone will get an idea of how things were in our time. No it isn't all rainbows and roses :)
You have a point Scher about drawing the line.. but I still think it's more accurate and authentic to have a wide-range of `literature' from any given point in history for future reference. So in Twain's time, what if all his books had been censored and burned and we now don't have an accurate portrayal of African-American history? I don't want my history sanitised, I want to know how wretchedly horrible Hitler was, so hopefully it never happens again.
Children unfortunately have to be exposed to uncomfortable ugly things sooner or later. If I had children of my own, of course my responsibility, I would do my utmost to prepare them for the ugly things in this world that will IMO never go away. At least I can hope that they will then be well-adjusted people armed and ready to deal with such moral and social quandry. Exposure to the dogma and beliefs of religious sects and splinter groups included. ;)
Sweeping things under the rug doesn't make them go away, the accumulation will just trip you up and come back to haunt you. In My Opinion, Your Mileage May Vary. :D
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
I will disagree with you, and if you want a good reason, here's what most of the forum thinks about banned books (please note that i am not saying this with a mean tone):
http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=13550
who is "you"?
__________________
I enjoy Bach, Vivaldi, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Eminem, 50 cent and Switchfoot. says T.zahn
my reply to the above statement is --- i enjoy sibalius, queen, led zeppelin, eric bibb, grappelli and many more
Hello,
I have to agree that Huck Finn is not racist, but a social commentary on racism and slavery...which is a subtle yet distinct difference, and ingenious in that way, since anything blatantly and explicity liberal would never have gotten published back then, do you see how clever that is? We can never mark any written material as unpublishable anymore...just look at the past to find out what a horrible crime it is to censor ideas, words, combinations of words, .....it is a hypocrisy to judge others anyway, unless one is willing to turn that scathing microscope onto oneself as well.
Hmmm...I dare say that although people could take it the wrong way through misinterpretation, Mark Twain's book isn't really racist, so much as being a portrait of what people were like, and how they thought. I suppose that I never really warmed to Huck because of his rather narrow minded beliefs, but then again, I have to read the book with the social attitudes of the time in mind. It seems to me that Huck is the victim of ignorance and a white supremacist education which most people had in those days anyway. Basically, I think Twain was simply reminding us of how people were, and considering the way people treated former slaves afterwards when the book was published, he was also pointing out to readers what was still happening to that very day. Sure, it wasn't exactly Harper Lee, but give the man a break.
As for the burning of books, that's the way people react when they go overboard with political correctness. In the end, I think it's the reader's choice.
I don't believe that the book is racist based on the era it was created. Twain was making a point and basically recording the historical ideals, values and beliefs of that time. It was a reflection of Mark Twains interpretations of the slavery era he was exposed to and the mind sets and opinions of those around him. Is it racist? To me: "no". Did this book create a spark, and inspire someone to give it thought and start this thread?? And then have all of us that have read it give it more thought and respond?? "Yes". The book did what it was suppose to do.
Therefore I also do not believe in the banning of any books. They are there to teach, to make us think, expand our horizons, entertain, inspire, inform.... Fiction or non fiction, new or old, a books publication era portrays that time and place that our society was at.
It’s all about interpretation. That’s what is so wonderful about having a site like this. We can read a book , or a poem, or any form of literature, and post how we read it. Then someone else can say, “Well I read it this way”, and can give a different insight and perspective on it. And then another entry, and another and another We’re never wrong on our opinions. (though a couple I’ve read on other threads strike me as ill-educated and narrow minded) It’s still a point of view. At least we get other views to consider, compare and possibly expand on our own.
I think it's an ugly symptom of the present era that this thread is dedicated to discussing whether these books are politically correct rather than whether they are works of art.
we were just having an argument about this in my american lit class after watching a film pro-ban on huckleberry finn. personally, i don't agree that any book at all should be censored in any sort of way, shape, or form. and please, let's consider a few things before going off about why this particular book should be taken off the shelves of schools, burned, or whatever else you may have in mind.
first, this was the first book published in north america that did not portray slaves as dim-witted people with a lack of speech. huck finn and jim were very much so close friends as the book went on. he was clever, smart, and cared for huck just as much as huck cared for him. let's not forget what huck said about jim, "i'd rather go to hell than betray a friend."
this is a book that's required for schools' students to read, at least in the state of colorado. mark twain was against slavery, he did not own any or condone it.
if you're going to fight to censor books, why so bent on Huckleberry Finn? in Dean Koontz's ealier books (an example would be From the Corner of His Eye), some of his characters think and use slanderizing terms towards african americans. why hasn't that even been considered of being taken off the shelves of public schools and libraries? it is more current, isn't it? or have my eyes betrayed me in reading the publishing date of the year 2000?
please, do your homework. take the book for the satire it is. in fact, when you open the book, there is a notice. i think i'll put it here. just as, you know, a reminder.
"Notice
Persons attemting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR
Per G. G., CHIEF OF ORDANCE."
come on, folks. you can't tell me that's not the least bit amusing. Mark Twain, Samuel L. Clemens, Sieur Louis de Conte, are all one and the same. and his works of literature were not supposed to be taken as racial slanderizing. they were satires! the fight to take this single book off shelves is getting so heated that it's beginning to sound rediculous!
but then again, #24 on the 2005 banned book list was The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. i suppose that was racist, too?
please understand i'm not trying to sound like a bigot. i'm very aware where the racism is supposed to shine through like a beacon to legal authorities. but it's sad, frightening, and appalling that works of literature can be viewed as such a waste of time, that it's a tosser, and should never be in the hands of kids and adults alike. how are we ever supposed to learn anything at all? which brings up an other thing; why are you reading this? why are you considering responding (admit it. you are.)? what are we supposed to do, tell epics like we're orators that really know nothing and distort stories so much that, in hundreds of years, there are ten thousand different copies and not a single one of them is written the way the original was? :(
honestly, can you tell me that your heart doesn't sink just a little bit even thinking about it? every week a book is banned somewhere in the united states. literature that will never reach the hands of anyone who wants to read it. how dare anybody say one should be prized over the other?
end rant.
Don’t be alarmed starrwriter but I have to agree wholeheartedly with you there – nothing is more terrifying than ideas, especially to those who only want us to have theirs. Political correctness is a tyranny because it will brook absolutely no opposition, will permit no challenge to its self-appointed status as ultimate truth.
projectXburnout, you are a dangerous individual – you are passionate and wish to be allowed to think. I wish I had more like you in my classes. The extent to which you are already half bludgeoned into submission is apparent in the fact that you find it necessary to issue disclaimers – “please understand i'm not trying to sound like a bigot.” You are not the bigot.
To: projectXburnout.
Well said. (You sound wise beyond your years.)
Cheers.