“Unnecessary Controversy” Unnecessary Controversy “Jims’ a nigger and wouldn’t understand it” (Twain 182). That’s what Huckleberry Finn says about Jim, a runaway slave that he is helping and as if black people are any less intelligent. The word “nigger” gives the story more meaning instead of what some people think offends the reader. Throughout the book, Huckleberry struggles with himself about whether he should be helping Jim or not and that struggle claws at the reader. Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, made a good choice to include controversial words in the book to show racial injustice and should be taught in schools.
The huge controversy about New South editors/publishers being justified in altering Mark Twain’s original format of Huckleberry Finn has become a large topic of discussion among students and adults all over the United states. There are many people that have an opinion on this topic and more and more we are hearing their voices about it. I believe Twain purposely placed the word, “nigger” in his book to cause shock and really emphasize how unusual the relationship between Huck and Jim had become. New South Editors/Publishers were not justified, in my opinion, to change Twain’s work because the word was put there to stand out and really show you the way people felt back in 1885. The feeling and points Twain was trying to convey with the word,
Censorship The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has recently been revised to remove the word ‘nigger’ which appears over two hundred times. The censorship of this piece of classical literature is devaluing the novel and the ideas portrayed in it. The “harmful epithets”, which also include the word ‘injun’, serve as an integral part of this novel and sanitizing this book for the goal of political correctness is also stripping a historical document of information that acknowledges America’s blatantly racist past and makes our youth aware, through education, the toxicity of prejudice. Twain’s work is dependent on his conveyance of the actual state of things and relation of ideas popular to his era. The content in the work is imperative to the messages it communicates.
Du Bois were right that the problem of the twentieth century is racism, one would never know it from the average secondary-school syllabus, which often avoids issues of race almost completely. However, Huck Finn can slip into the American literature classroom as a "classic," only to engulf students in heated debates about prejudice and racism, conformity, autonomy, authority, slavery and freedom. It is a book that puts on the table the very questions the culture so often tries to bury, a book that opens out into the complex history that shaped it; the history of the ante-bellum era in which the story is set, and the history of the post-war period in which the book was written. It also requires us to address that history. Much of that history is painful.
1984 Versus Brave New World Both 1984 and Brave New World are unique novels about fictional dystopias imagined by their authors. Men who had experienced large-scale war in the twentieth century wrote both novels. Disillusioned and alarmed by what they saw in society, Huxley and Orwell both produced powerful satires with an alarming vision of future possibilities. Although the two books are very different, they address many of the same issues in contrasting ways. Because they are dystopias, they have several similarities such as the societal view on relationships and sex, the government, and society as a whole.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "Notice": "Persons attempting 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." This quote from the very beginning of the novel indicates that this book is classified as satire. This is a red flag to the reader that this story is not as it seems. It may seem like a child’s book, yet it manages to address larger and more complex issues like slavery and racism. The author’s writing style is very informal and colloquial.
It would be reasonable to name John Steinbeck the author with best effect in modeling views of a particular era in American history. His piece of the puzzle in our nations history is the years included by the Great Depression. Stenibecks most highly regarded novel, The Grapes of Wrath, has been so dispersed throughout American society since being published in 1939 that it has influenced the perception of the times of the Great Depression and the following westward movement. The novel was successful in its symbolism, which may have been the intention. However, it is somewhat inaccurate in small areas historically.
In order for this book to be historically correct and accurate, the word nigger must be used. Finn addresses his slave, Jim, as nigger; however, throughout the course of this novel, Finn sees the error in his ways and in turn helps Jim gain his freedom. Whether or not The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be banned from schools is a debatable topic. The claims as to why this American classic should be banned are logical; however, they fail to put things into perspective. This word as well as many other vulgar words are said and heard daily.
William Golding’s first novel, Lord of the Flies, is a book that has been challenged repeatedly. It’s an obvious statement when I say that people can argue for both sides of this debate, but there are several points that can be made for the interest of the people that do not want the book to be challenged or banned. This novel is one of a fictional setting and plot, but is based upon an underlying theme of reality. William Golding applies the times of war and the struggling society to the beginning of this novel, and the idea of both of those aspects to the children on the island. When the first copy of the novel was in print, and being distributed, the book began with an introduction as to how the children ended up on the island.
10, by James Madison, comes at a time when America is starting to become a country of its own. America has won the Revolution and Madison is trying to get Americans to approve the new constitution. Madison’s editorial is the most influential in my opinion because it points out the negatives of the old system and how the new system will improve on these negatives. Madison explains that “instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished.” (Madison 53-54) Madison realizes that there are different opinions concerning everything from government to religion. He explains that since there are so many different opinions, arguments will occur.