Huck Finn #5
October 25th, 2006
Huck Finn has been challenged as inappropriate reading material ever since its publication in 1855 publication. The book was originally criticized as being boorish, and in poor taste; later, it was denounced for having racist themes. Do you think this novel is racist? Anti-racist? Point to specific examples to support your stance.
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I don’t think that Twain intended the book to be racist, yet the time period in which the book was written people owned slaves especially in the South. In the first chapters Huck states that people in St. Petersburg have slaves but on a smaller scale then the big plantations farther South. There is no cruelty that the widow inflects upon her slaves, since they mostly work in the house. The book isn’t really anti-racist because it shows the attitudes that people had about slaves at the time, especially when Huck gets uneasy at first about going down the river with Jim.
yea, slavery was a cruel thing, but Twain being a novelist was most likely just showing the way things were , I mean if it happened you have to be real about it not paint a pretty yet false picture, the point of the book was to show stuff that Twain proably saw as wrong so he did and couldn’t sugar coat it if he wanted a true resonse
No way the book is certainly not racist. Though I do see some signs of anti racist. Huck seems to put down the ones who look at Jim wrongly. At least that is my perspective. No huck always views Jim as an equal there is certainly no racisism or something silly like that. Huck breaks away from what he has been taught to think about skin color when he gets to know Jim. Twain puts down those who judge by race through huck.