The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin is a book that was written by Mark Twain back in the 1800's. This book is a very funny book that still hold true today. Mark wrote the book to mimic the characters he chose to add into his story. At times it's often hard to read because of his gross use of the word nigger. I understand that he was just writing it as the way people were during his time. I also understand that they didn't have any other word for African-Americans, but having grown up in a world where that word is demeaning towards a race makes it often hard to read.
That being said, I still feel we should hold on to our past as to not forget what things where like, and to not repeat our past. Currently we have people trying to take evolution out of the curriculum and I think that is very dangerous. I think it's wrong to banish things from our curriculum unless most people accept it as being destructive to society. This takes me back to what I was trying to say about Walt Whitman's poem when he was trying to convey that you must take information in and decipher what you think is the truth. You can't rely on what one or a few people say. We all should have the access to all information, so we can access what we want and ignore what we don't want.
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Lane,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree that obviously we are dealing here with the past...something that cannot be sponged out of our history. I feel the same way about his use of language, but then again the word "african-american" has been around not for so long. But it is still such a good story about friendship and what it should be like.
The "n-word" (I hate that expression; it sounds like something a second-grade teacher would say) certainly causes difficulties. In Twain's day, it was both a nonjudgmental term (as is usually the case when Huck uses it) and an insult (as when Pap spits it out). Today, among whites, it is usually filled with hate. But to ban a book just because it uses the word seems to me to deny part of our history.
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