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

[Sarah Colin]

When first reading this book, I was surprised by the racist names used in the book. After reading the novel for a while I realized that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not a racist book. I don’t think that Mr. Twain was trying to make his novel racist; I believe he was only using the racist names to capture the setting of the novel. He wrote his novel in the setting of a time period when African Americans were slaves.

In my opinion I don’t think Mr. Mark Twain is racist, I think he is against racism. Usually back then when there was a man and his slave there would be no friendship between them, the slave owner would only think of him as his property. On the other hand, Mr. Mark Twain shows a connection between Huck and Jim, Huck begins to get over the racial barrier between them.

For example, in chapter 15, Huck said, " It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way." In this example from the book, you can tell that Mr. Mark Twain is against racism because he is having a white man become a friend to an African American, if he was racist, why would he have let this be in his novel?

[LGW]

Mark Twain's, "The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn," is a contriversial satire that exposed racism in America. Dialogue that appears blatantly racist in this book is actually a back-handed slap to southern culture at the time. When Huck runs into Aunt Sally and tells her his steamboat was late because they blew a cylinder-head and only a "nigger was dead she replied,"Well it's lucky;because sometimes people do get hurt." Twain is satirizing the aspect of southern culture which regared slaves as property and not human beings.
"I thought them poor girls and them niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each other and took on so it most made me down sick to see it." When the duke and king sell the three girls' slaves twain uses situational irony; the girls are holding this family in bondage but are miserable when the family gets auctioned off.

[penelopea]

We are all racist ,by definition of existance .

If literature copies life,then let it be racist .

Please ,let us be free to discriminate or be scarred.

Just remember to be well mannered about it .

[Sarka]

"The Adventures of H.F." is a typical case of the message of a book being totally ignored because of how it is presented. Huck Finn refers to Jim by "the N-word" simply because that is how he has been taught to refer to slaves. Throughout the book he learns that Jim is just as human as he, even though he has been taught otherwise. That is what the book is about, essentially; through Huck's realization that Jim's race makes him no different, Twain is actually making an anti-racist point, not a racist one. The book in itself is not racist simply because the society about which it is written is inherently so.

[readingrainbow]

I'm going to have to disagree with you Penolopa. We are not all racist by nature. We may be prejudice by nature but that does not intell that we are prejudice against different or in some cases our own races. Humans have the mental capacity to understand and to comprehend that racism is wrong, immoral, and a choice, not a natural, inevitable or adamant process which we all live by.
I must disagree, however, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is most definatly not racist. One could argue and it is a very legitimate arguement that Mark Twain was only providing readers with a horribly accurate example of how men and women of African orgins were treated and misjudged. The accessive use of the word "nigger" was not a racist comment but a swing on the dialect of the individuals in which Twain wrote of. It was in no way derogitory or displaying of his thoughts of any African American.
In addition he creates a bond between a black man, Tom, and a white child, Huck. This can also support that he was in no way creating a racist enviornment for the readers. The people that would have read this book in the time that it was written would have been used to the language used and the assumptions presented. Mark Twain in essence was no presenting the world with a book of racism and judgement but a reason to overcome that. While everyone in the book distrusts Tom, they should really be looking at the brothers, whom they take into their homes and accept as good people. They base the assumption on color. Twain was forworning us that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover. He was in no way showing us racism to spread it, but to prevent it.

[louise26]

this book is clearly not racist! in the time period Huck Finn was written, these words were not considered to be derogatory or racist. it was considered natural to look down on blacks and consider them to not be of the same class of human as whites. Throughout the story, Huck befriends the slave, Jim. He helps free this man, and begins to see him for more than just a black slave. Huck begins the process of accepting all people, regardless of color. This book is amost anti-racism. If someone thinks it's racist simply because it uses the word "nigger", they have not read the book and gotten the true meaning out of it.

[Jean-Baptiste]

If someone thinks it's racist simply because it uses the word "nigger", they have not read the book and gotten the true meaning out of it.

I agree completely.

Welcome to the forums, Louise!

[Virgil]

this book is clearly not racist! in the time period Huck Finn was written, these words were not considered to be derogatory or racist.

Well, that's not true. The word was derogatory and it was racist. You say so yourself in your next sentence:

it was considered natural to look down on blacks and consider them to not be of the same class of human as whites.

Natural or not it's still racism.

Throughout the story, Huck befriends the slave, Jim. He helps free this man, and begins to see him for more than just a black slave. Huck begins the process of accepting all people, regardless of color. This book is amost anti-racism. If someone thinks it's racist simply because it uses the word "nigger", they have not read the book and gotten the true meaning out of it.

Now I agree with you that Twain is not racist. Jim is the moral center of the novel and a character with nobility. People who interpret the novel as racist are wrong.

[Redzeppelin]

When it comes to books like Huck Finn, the key is not in the language but the presentation of character. According to what characters say in the book, the charge of "racism" may seem viable; however, when you examine the characters Twain populated his fictional world with you see a different story. With the exception of Huck, and brief appearances of Judge Thatcher and the Widow Douglas, there is hardly an admirable white character in the book. If anybody should be offended by this book it should be white southerners - who often came off in the book as bloodthirsty, gullible and dishonest. Jim (as Virgil correctly said) is the moral center of the book - and, in a comparison of Huck's two "fathers" he clearly comes out better than the abusive pap. That Huck was willing to risk his eternal soul (whether of not he fully understood the full implications of his choice to "go to hell") for his friend speaks volumes more than any amount of derogatory language the novel can muster.

[musicman]

I weary of "surface" readers. These are persons who, because of a deficiency in comprehension or insufficient schooling or a need to crank out essays for tests on short order, must come up with the ANSWER to questions on complex ideas like Twain's. It isn't really their fault, but they can do something to change: they can listen to/read the book all the way to the end and refrain from making "snap" judgments. Twain, for numerous reasons, deserves to be heard until he's done and commented upon afterwards.

By reading the beginning of the book and skimming the rest, such a judgment of racism might make sense to a light reader. Although the first few chapters of the book make the satire much gentler (these chapters were written before Twain realized what a great monster of a novel he was actually writing), they, too, brim with satire.

The situation described when the two men who won't go on the raft because Jim is masquerading as Huck's sick father is a clear case in point. Remember that Twain, like a real actor, stays in Huck's character. We MUST see things as this young boy, trained up in the ways of casual racism sees things. Huck tricks the men into leaving and into giving him two 20-dollar gold pieces. "Why do right when it's troublesome to do right?" asks the boy. Huck knows that he ought to turn Jim over to the slave hunters, because that's what he has been taught. He has also learned how easy it is to lie, and his loyalty to the MAN, Jim, is stronger than his loyalty to a code of slavery, and he lies to save Jim. "And the wages is jis' the same."

It is wrong to think that the author, speaking through Huck, agrees with the slave hunters or their code of ethics.

[ennison]

Even if it is a text that is careless in its use of certain words it strikes me as being supremely unimportant. There is a ridiculous political correctness crawling through the climate of opinion in some chattering class corners that nothing, but nothing is as bad as using some terms of racial abuse so much so that a murder committed in silence is unlikely to get the murderer a prison term or excoriation as bad as an angry exchange in which some tender soul is wounded by a term of tenuously religio/ethnic/racial denigration.
Twain wrote a terrific book. I read it many times as a child and would recommend it to anyone.

[JGL57]

Though I'm white, growing up in the segregated and racist south (Mississippi) of the '50s and '60 certainly instilled in me the intuitive ability to discern quite readily the difference between some superficial appearance of racism and actual heartfelt racism.

As most have averred on this thread, "Huck Finn" is an anti-racist book, not straight forward but round about and satirical, as has been explained. I read it at age 12 and it was one of many influences around that time - and on into my adolescense - that brought me to the understanding that an entire society could be unjust and plain out wrong in its basic understanding of the facts of common human decency - in this case, that all humans should be treated as equals under the law.

So, I think the proof is in the pudding. So, are there any people who would claim that reading H.F. affected them in an opposite direction, i.e., actually encouraged them in their racism? Gee - I would have to severely doubt that.

[katie9trent]

I never thought about it really!

[stormgirl_blue]

*laughing hard here*
Huck Fin was on my compulsory reading list at school, year 11 Unit3 advanced English
When I was told I had to read it I moaned and groaned about having to read some kids book, .
I loved it and until this day it remains “that book”, the one that aroused my love for classical literature.

is it racist.! lol, no way not ever, ever, there was nothing racist what so ever in it, if someone is black they are black, that’s not racist, it was a sign of the times, never at all did it intend spite anyone black red or white
I’m not being mean but that “racist” word has been thrown around so carelessly the true meaning and strength of it has been turned into a joke. Which is the real shame because real racism does exist and its very disturbing.

[mateo]

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......

If by southern U.S.A. you mean illinois and missouri then yes. but i usually view those as north. simply bc of the whole civivl war rthing, and cardinal directions. so yea. the rest of ur post is now invalid.