"Is Huckleberry Finn a racist book?"/ "This book is racist"

When I began reading the book, at first I thought it was racist, but as the book went on my opinion changed. As we all know, Twain likes to use satires to express his opinions on certain aspects of society. Throughout the book, Twain uses small satires.I think most people miss the big satire, which is the whole book. Twain is satirizing the Southern society, throughout the whole book. He's making fun of the way they talk and their views on slavery. Yes, I understand that some of the words he uses may be offensive to some, but if they look past the words and at the bigger picture they'll understand his point of view. So I think even though some of his words are harsh it helps get his point across. The people that believe this book is racist need to take another look and remember the style of writing he's using.
I think his point of view on slavery is kind of obvious. The book is talking about how Huck helped Jim get to freedom. On their journey Huck fights with his conscience about wheather he's doing the right thing by helping Jim. Each time Huck comes to the conclusion that Jim deserves to be free and that they really are not so different from each other. Even though the people around Huck and Jim are racist, they treat each other like equals. The two of them become very close and learn to look out for each other. When times get rough they know they can always count on each other. For example. when Jim is taken prisoner on the Phelps farm, Jim knows that Huck's going to help him escape. That's exactly what Huck does even though they both end up right back there.
Time and time again they look out for each other, like when Jim discovered that dead man was Huck's Pap. Even though Pap treated Huck really bad, Jim didn't let Huck see his Pap like that.When the two white men were looking for runaway slaves, Huck lied and said Jim was white. So these reasons I believe that the book is NOT racist and in reality it's just a book about two people who become friends over a long journey.

I could not possibly agree more, babycassi, and thank you so much for posting this thread. I discussed a little regarding Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn yesterday, in fact, and reflected on the precise issue. Unfortunately, in the United States, immense numbers of libraries have banned the novel, due to having so many complaints of racism and use of racial slurs.

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Originally Posted by babycassi816

As we all know, Twain likes to use satires to express his opinions on certain aspects of society.

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Indeed, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) actually did not consider himself racist, and saw no use of owning or laboring slaves; on the contrary, he enjoyed emphasizing the humor in such a ridiculous idea of using slaves. I surprise myself how angry I get on this issue, due to the book's banning (along with many other novels of its time), and even found that most of the people who made the complaints had never read Mark Twain, or merely had a lack of understanding. Clearly, as you said, the typical reader can witness the values of friendship Twain places between two people of, at that time, very opposing origins; true, yes, Finn lied to people about Jim's race to help him escape, but that, I think, mostly highlighted some of Mark Twain's own beliefs regarding the problem.

Here is an essay which Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) wrote, entitled "What is Man"

http://emotionalliteracyeducation.co...ine/wman10.htm

I am trying to find things about Mark Twain to help me decide if he could be considered a racist.

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Originally Posted by Witches and Infant Damnation

I haven't any idea that Shakespeare will have to vacate his
pedestal this side of the year 2209. Disbelief in him cannot
come swiftly, disbelief in a healthy and deeply-loved tar baby
has never been known to disintegrate swiftly; it is a very slow
process. It took several thousand years to convince our fine
race--including every splendid intellect in it--that there is no
such thing as a witch; it has taken several thousand years to
convince the same fine race--including every splendid intellect
in it--that there is no such person as Satan; it has taken
several centuries to remove perdition from the Protestant
Church's program of post-mortem entertainments; it has taken a
weary long time to persuade American Presbyterians to give up
infant damnation and try to bear it the best they can; and it
looks as if their Scotch brethren will still be burning babies in
the everlasting fires when Shakespeare comes down from his perch.

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Originally Posted by Human's Chamelion Nature

Old Man. Study, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is a
part of it--but not a large part. I mean ALL the outside
influences. There are a million of them. From the cradle to the
grave, during all his waking hours, the human being is under
training. In the very first rank of his trainers stands
ASSOCIATION. It is his human environment which influences his
mind and his feelings, furnishes him his ideals, and sets him on
his road and keeps him in it. If he leave that road he will find
himself shunned by the people whom he most loves and esteems, and
whose approval he most values. He is a chameleon; by the law of
his nature he takes the color of his place of resort. The
influences about him create his preferences, his aversions, his
politics, his tastes, his morals, his religion. He creates none
of these things for himself. He THINKS he does, but that is
because he has not examined into the matter. You have seen
Presbyterians?

Y.M. Many.

O.M. How did they happen to be Presbyterians and not
Congregationalists? And why were the Congregationalists not
Baptists, and the Baptists Roman Catholics, and the Roman
Catholics Buddhists, and the Buddhists Quakers, and the Quakers
Episcopalians, and the Episcopalians Millerites and the
Millerites Hindus, and the Hindus Atheists, and the Atheists
Spiritualists, and the Spiritualists Agnostics, and the Agnostics
Methodists, and the Methodists Confucians, and the Confucians
Unitarians, and the Unitarians Mohammedans, and the Mohammedans
Salvation Warriors, and the Salvation Warriors Zoroastrians, and
the Zoroastrians Christian Scientists, and the Christian
Scientists Mormons--and so on?

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Originally Posted by Truth Seekers

I told you
that there are none but temporary Truth-Seekers; that a permanent
one is a human impossibility; that as soon as the Seeker finds
what he is thoroughly convinced is the Truth, he seeks no
further, but gives the rest of his days to hunting junk to patch
it and caulk it and prop it with, and make it weather-proof and
keep it from caving in on him. Hence the Presbyterian remains a
Presbyterian, the Mohammedan a Mohammedan, the Spiritualist a
Spiritualist, the Democrat a Democrat, the Republican a
Republican, the Monarchist a Monarchist; and if a humble,
earnest, and sincere Seeker after Truth should find it in the
proposition that the moon is made of green cheese nothing could
ever budge him from that position; for he is nothing but an
automatic machine, and must obey the laws of his construction.

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Originally Posted by Mind as Machine

I think that the rat's mind and the man's mind are the
same machine, but of unequal capacities--like yours and Edison's;
like the African pygmy's and Homer's; like the Bushman's and Bismarck's.

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It's a great book, one of the greatest I've ever read. I'v read it three or four times and I can't find anything racist in it, but it is a first person narrative told from the point of view of someone accustomed to using the word 'nigger' and I suppose some people who don't really know how to read a novel (a) mistake this for the author's voice and (b) fail to notice all the ways in which the author signals his distaste for racism.

It's interesting that another of the greatest books in the English language, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, also concerns a river voyage and also touches on racial issues, as a result of which it has been accused of racism.

I believe there is a lot of racism in The Adventures of huckleberry Finn. I do acknowledge the time that he wrote the story to be in and the dialect he is using. Some people are posting that the book isn’t really racist it is just the dialect he is writing in. But the racism in this book goes deeper than that.
The book isn’t racist because of how many times they use the word nigger. You have to pay attention to how people act. Like how Huck says that Jim has a “level head for a nigger”. Why can’t he have a level head? Just because he is a nigger he isn’t suppote have a level head. How shocked Huck was to find out Jim care for and missed his family so much. People assumed that slaves didn’t care or have the same feelings for there families as a white man does. Just because there black. Even down to the way Huck make Jim feel so below him sometimes.
Slaves were basically a different species to white people back then. Whites assumed they had none of the brains or feeling a white person would have. I also believe that Huck is working threw his racism threw out this book. He goes from playing jokes on a sleeping slave. To struggling with almost turning Jim in twice. All the way to apologizing to Jim for making him feel so bad the night they got separated and Huck told him that it was all a dream. :flare:

We would like to disagree with you.
The book has got a certain historical and geographical setting. That dictates quite a lot in a novel - including the way how people think about things.
Do you think that white free people in America that time thought that they and the black slaves were equal? We have got a nagging feeling that they didn't.
Twain is merely reflecting and showing how people thought then, in our opinion; there is a difference between what the author thinks and what the characters of the novel think. The author doesn't think like a racist.
If this book were racist, then Jim would actually have been shown as a emotionless and dumb person and so on. He isn't shown like that in the book.
In the book, Jim is shown as a smart, caring man, despite of what the other characters think of him.
Is that racist?
We think not.

And of course, welcome to the forums.

Rascist Huck? Maybe. After all, his character is raised in the southern U.S.A during a time when rascism was rampant. But is the book meant to perpetuate rascism? IMHO...the story highlights rascism so as to remark upon its awful and enduring practice. The rascism in this story is not condoned, but instead is glaringly portrayed so as to encourage its eradication. As far as I know, slavery is not something M. Twain championed, but abhorred. As should we all......

lizzzzzzz during the time frame the book to place Huck's attitude was a standard norm for white people who had slaves. Not everyone white treated a slave the same way but the majority did. Even though Huck's father was a drunken abuser should not mean that Huck can related to what Jim went through either. I am not saying that racsim is right but did you stop think maybe that was Mark Twain's point in the story? Mark Twain could have written Huck Finn in order so show just how racist people truly can be. After all he showed us how it affected Jim as a person not just as a black slave. I agree with baddad's reply and that he is right. This book is banned from most schools and has been burned in some towns throughout the last couple of decades. I do not believe any book should be banned or burned because we are afraid of what is written inside it.

Burned!!!!!????? Banned!!!!???? What century am I living in????

^ twenty-first. :)

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Originally Posted by baddad

Burned!!!!!????? Banned!!!!???? What century am I living in????

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Yeah, I heard about Huck Finn being burned in the late eighties and many protest's from parents who did not want their children reading in it the school library. My school removed it from the selves during my junior year and it was not fair because Mark Twain is one of my favorite arthurs. Hitler burned thousands of book during WWII and that hurts. I would have loved to see what those books were about. I love books very much and it is a shame when they are lost.

i beg to differ. i condemn book-burning (what a waste of tree! please recycle), but i actually believe that some books deserve to be banned. look, statistic shows that one book is published every five minutes (source withheld on request ;)), and i doubt that all of these books are worth my--your--time. i also advocate book-banning in junior and high school because some books just are inappropriate for kids. (like that book forever by judy blume, for example; i read it when i was in high school and i was scarred for life). oh, they can read them later in life, like in college, but junior and high school libraries shouldn't stack crap like that.

i'm rambling. excuse me, i just ate enough for three people.

Plus, book burnings help bring the community together and provide a source of warmth to the homeless.

(my original post, which the post underneath mine refers to was "Oh, what grim tidings that blue, size four comic sans MS font brings!)

^ we need the cheeriness. :D

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Originally Posted by underground

i beg to differ. i condemn book-burning (what a waste of tree! please recycle), but i actually believe that some books deserve to be banned. look, statistic shows that one book is published every five minutes (source withheld on request ;)), and i doubt that all of these books are worth my--your--time. i also advocate book-banning in junior and high school because some books just are inappropriate for kids. (like that book forever by judy blume, for example; i read it when i was in high school and i was scarred for life). oh, they can read them later in life, like in college, but junior and high school libraries shouldn't stack crap like that.

i'm rambling. excuse me, i just ate enough for three people.

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Not heard of that book but if it scarred you then why was it in your school library. Besides isn't the adults that should be supervising what kids read, watch, and listen too. I realize not every book is for everyone but I always have been more mature as a kid and I read books beyond my grade level. Should I have waited with those whom weren't ready yet? I was not scared and children can understand more then we adult give them credit for. I think that perhaps each child after 15 can decide what they can read or not.