Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by
Mark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the
Great American NovelThe "Great American Novel" is the concept of a novel that is distinguished in both craft and theme as being the most accurate representative of the zeitgeist in the United States at the time of its writing. It is presumed to be written by an American author who is knowledgeable about the state,...
s, the work is among the first in major
American literatureAmerican literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...
to be written in the
vernacularA vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
, characterized by
local color regionalismIn literature, regionalism or local color refers to fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features – including characters, dialects, customs, history, and topography – of a particular region...
. It is told in the first person by
Huckleberry "Huck" FinnHuckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain, who first appeared in the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He is 12 or 13 years old during the former and a year older at the time of the latter...
, a friend of
Tom SawyerThomas "Tom" Sawyer is the title character of the Mark Twain novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . He appears in three other novels by Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Tom Sawyer Abroad , and Tom Sawyer, Detective .Sawyer also appears in at least three unfinished Twain works, Huck and Tom...
and narrator of two other Twain novels (
Tom Sawyer AbroadTom Sawyer Abroad is a novel by Mark Twain published in 1894. It features Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in a parody of Jules Verne-esque adventure stories.-Plot:...
and
Tom Sawyer, DetectiveTom Sawyer, Detective is an 1896 novel by Mark Twain. It is a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , and Tom Sawyer Abroad . Tom Sawyer attempts to solve a mysterious murder in this burlesque of the immensely popular detective novels of the time...
). It is a sequel to
The Adventures of Tom SawyerThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. The story is set in the Town of "St...
.
The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the
Mississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
.
SatirizingSatire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
a
SouthernThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
antebellum society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before the work was published, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.
Perennially popular with readers, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by serious literary critics since its publication. It was criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial slur "
niggerNigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...
", despite strong arguments that the protagonist, and the tenor of the book, is in fact anti-racist.
Publication history
Twain initially conceived of the work as a sequel to
The Adventures of Tom SawyerThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. The story is set in the Town of "St...
that would follow Huckleberry Finn through adulthood. Beginning with a few pages he had removed from the earlier novel, Twain began work on a manuscript he originally titled Huckleberry Finn's Autobiography. Twain worked on the manuscript off and on for the next several years, ultimately abandoning his original plan of following Huck's development into adulthood. He appeared to have lost interest in the manuscript while it was in progress, and set it aside for several years. After making a trip down the Mississippi, Twain returned to his work on the novel. Upon completion, the novel's title closely paralleled its predecessor's: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade).
Unlike The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn does not have the definite article "the" as a part of its proper title. Essayist and critic Spencer Neve asserts that this absence represents the "never fulfilled anticipations" of Huck's adventures—while Tom's adventures were completed (at least at the time) by the end of his novel, Huck's narrative ends with his declared intention to head West.
Mark Twain composed the story in pen on notepaper between 1876 and 1883. Paul Needham, who supervised the authentication of the manuscript for Sotheby's books and manuscripts department in New York in 1991, stated, "What you see is [Clemens'] attempt to move away from pure literary writing to dialect writing". For example, Twain revised the opening line of Huck Finn three times. He initially wrote, "You will not know about me", which he changed to, "You do not know about me", before settling on the final version, "You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'; but that ain't no matter". The revisions also show how Twain reworked his material to strengthen the characters of Huck and Jim, as well as his sensitivity to the then-current debate over literacy and voting.
A later version was the first typewritten manuscript delivered to a printer.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was eventually published on December 10, 1884, in Canada and England, and on February 18, 1885, in the United States. The illustration on page 283 became a point of issue after an engraver, whose identity was never discovered, made a last-minute addition to the printing plate of Kemble’s picture of old Silas Phelps. In the mischievous tradition of graffiti he drew in a line outlining the bulge against inside of pants of a male sex organ. The sabotage was discovered while the book was at press and the offending plate was replaced, the corrected plate being slightly altered in the area of Silas Phelps’ trousers fly. Thirty thousand copies of the book had been printed before the obscenity was discovered. A new plate was made to correct the illustration and repair the existing copies; versions with the so-called "curved fly" are valuable collectors items.
In 1885, the
Buffalo Public Library'sThe Buffalo & Erie County Public Library is located on Lafayette Square, Buffalo, New York. The current facility, built in 1963, replaced the original Cyrus Eidlitz Buffalo Public Library Building dedicated in February 1887. The first Buffalo Public Library, in turn, replaced the Erie County, New...
curator, James Fraser Gluck, approached Twain to donate the manuscript to the Library. Twain sent half of the pages, believing the other half to have been lost by the printer. In 1991, the missing half turned up in a steamer trunk owned by descendants of Gluck. The Library successfully proved possession and, in 1994, opened the Mark Twain Room in its Central Library to showcase the treasure.
Plot summary
Life in St. Petersburg
The story begins in fictional Langlem, Missouri, on the shores of the
Mississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
, sometime between 1835 (when the first steamboat sailed down the Mississippi) and 1845. Two young boys, Thomas 'Tom' Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, have each come into a considerable sum of money as a result of their earlier adventures (
The Adventures of Tom SawyerThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. The story is set in the Town of "St...
). Huck has been placed under the guardianship of the Widow Douglas, who, together with her sister, Miss Watson, are attempting to civilize him. Huck appreciates their efforts, but finds civilized life confining. In the beginning of the story, Tom Sawyer appears briefly, helping Huck escape at night from the house, past Miss Watson's slave,
JimJim is one of two major fictional characters in the classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The book chronicles the journey of Jim and Huckleberry "Huck" Finn down the Mississippi River in the antebellum Southern United States. Jim is an adult African American who has escaped...
. They meet up with Tom Sawyer's self-proclaimed gang, who plot to carry out adventurous crimes. Life is changed by the sudden appearance of Huck's shiftless father "Pap", an abusive parent and drunkard. Although Huck is successful in preventing his Pap from acquiring his fortune, Pap forcibly gains custody of Huck and the two move to the backwoods where Huck is kept locked inside his father's cabin. Equally dissatisfied with life with his father, Huck escapes from the cabin, elaborately fakes his own death, and sets off down the Mississippi River, where he meets Jim.
The Floating House and Huck as a Girl
While living quite
comfortably in the wilderness along the Mississippi, Huck happily encounters Miss Watson's slave Jim on an island called Jackson's Island, and Huck learns that he has also run away, after he overheard Miss Watson acknowledging that she intended to sell Jim downriver, where conditions for slaves were even harsher, because he would bring a price of $800.
Jim is trying to make his way to
CairoCairo is the southernmost city in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is the county seat of Alexander County. Cairo is located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The rivers converge at Fort Defiance State Park, an American Civil War fort that was commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant...
, Illinois and then to Ohio, a free state, so he can buy his family's freedom. At first, Huck is conflicted over whether to tell someone about Jim's running away, but as they travel together and talk in depth, Huck begins to know more about Jim's past and his difficult life. As these talks continue, Huck begins to change his opinion about people, slavery, and life in general. This continues throughout the rest of the novel.
Huck and Jim take up in a cavern on a hill on Jackson's Island to wait out a storm. When they can, they scrounge around the river looking for food, wood, and other items. One night, they find a raft they will eventually use to travel down the Mississippi. Later, they find an entire house floating down the river and enter it to grab what they can. Entering one room, Jim finds a man lying dead on the floor, shot in the back while apparently trying to ransack the house. Jim refuses to let Huck see the man's face.
To find out the latest news in the area, Huck dresses as a girl and goes into town. He enters the house of a woman new to the area, thinking she won't recognize him. As they talk, she tells Huck there is a $300 reward for Jim, who is accused of killing Huck. She first becomes suspicious when he threads a needle incorrectly. Her suspicions are confirmed after she puts Huck through a series of tests. She cleverly tricks him into revealing he is a boy, but allows him to run off. He returns to the island and tells Jim of the manhunt, and the two load up the raft and leave the island.
The Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons
Huck and Jim's raft is swamped by a passing steamship, separating the two. Huck is given shelter by the Grangerfords, a prosperous local family. He becomes friends with Buck Grangerford, a boy about his age, and learns that the Grangerfords are engaged in a 30-year blood feud against another family, the Shepherdsons. The Grangerfords and Shepherdsons go to church. Both families bring guns to continue the feud, despite the church's preachings on brotherly love.
The vendetta comes to a head when Buck's sister, Sophia Grangerford, elopes with Harney Shepherdson. In the resulting conflict, all the Grangerford males from this branch of the family are shot and killed, although Grangerfords elsewhere survive to carry on the feud. Upon seeing Buck's corpse, Huck is too devastated to write about everything that happened. However, Huck does describe how he narrowly avoids his own death in the gunfight, later reuniting with Jim and the raft and together fleeing farther south on the Mississippi River.
The Duke and the King
Further down the river, Jim and Huck rescue two cunning
griftersA confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...
, who join Huck and Jim on the raft. The younger of the two swindlers, a man of about thirty, introduces himself as a son of an English
dukeA duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...
(the Duke of Bridgewater) and his father's rightful successor. The older one, about seventy, then trumps the Duke's claim by alleging that he is actually the Lost Dauphin, the son of
Louis XVILouis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
and rightful King of France. He continually misprounounces the duke's title as "Bilgewater" in conversation.
The Duke and the King then join Jim and Huck on the raft, committing a series of
confidenceA confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...
schemes on the way south. To allow for Jim's presence, they print fake bills for an escaped slave; and later they paint him up entirely in blue and call him the "Sick Arab". On one occasion they arrive in a town and advertise a three-night engagement of a play which they call "The Royal Nonesuch". The play turns out to be only a couple of minutes of hysterical cavorting, not worth anywhere near the 50 cents the townsmen were charged to see it.
On the afternoon of the first performance, a drunk called Boggs arrives in town and makes a nuisance of himself by going around threatening a southern gentleman by the name of Colonel Sherburn. Sherburn comes out and warns Boggs that he can continue threatening him up until exactly one o'clock. At one o'clock, Boggs continues and Colonel Sherburn kills him. Somebody in the crowd, whom Sherburn later identifies as Buck Harkness, cries out that Sherburn should be
lynchedLynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
. They all head up to Colonel Sherburn's gate, where they are met by Sherburn, who is standing on his porch carrying a loaded rifle. He causes them to back down, by making a defiant speech telling them about the essential cowardice of "Southern justice". The only lynching to be done here, says Sherburn, will be in the dark, by men wearing masks.
By the third night of "The Royal Nonesuch", the townspeople are ready to take their revenge; but the Duke and the King have already skipped town, and together with Huck and Jim, they continue down the river. Once they are far enough away, the two grifters test the next town, and decide to impersonate two brothers of Peter Wilks, a recently deceased man of property. Using an absurd English accent, the King manages to convince nearly all the townspeople that he is one of the brothers, a preacher just arrived from England, while the Duke pretends to be a deaf-mute to match accounts of the other brother. One man in town is certain that they are a fraud and confronts them on the matter, but the crowd refuse to support him. Afterwards, the Duke, out of fear, suggests to the King that they should cut and run. The King boldly states his intention to continue to liquidate Wilks' estate, saying, "Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?"
Huck likes Wilks' daughters, who treat him with kindness and courtesy, so he tries to thwart the grifters' plans by stealing back the inheritance money. However, when he is in danger of being discovered, he has to hide it in Wilks' coffin, which is buried the next morning without Huck knowing whether the money has been found or not. The arrival of two new men who seem to be the real brothers throws everything into confusion when none of their signatures match the one on record. (The deaf-mute brother, who is said to do the correspondence, has his arm in a sling and cannot currently write.) The townspeople devise a test, which requires digging up the coffin to check. When the money is found in Wilks' coffin, the Duke and the King are able to escape in the confusion. They manage to rejoin Huck and Jim on the raft to Huck's utter despair, since he had thought he had escaped them.
Jim's escape
After the four fugitives have drifted far enough from the town, the King takes advantage of Huck's temporary absence to sell his interest in the "escaped" slave Jim for forty dollars. Outraged by this betrayal, Huck rejects the advice of his "conscience", which continues to tell him that in helping Jim escape to freedom, he is stealing Miss Watson's property. Accepting that "All right, then, I'll go to hell!", Huck resolves to free Jim.
Jim is being held at the plantation of Silas and Sally Phelps, Tom's aunt and uncle. Since Tom is expected for a visit, Huck is mistaken for Tom. He plays along, hoping to find Jim's location and free him. When Huck intercepts Tom on the road and tells him everything, Tom decides to join Huck's scheme, pretending to be his younger half-brother Sid. Jim has also told the household about the two grifters and the new plan for "The Royal Nonesuch", so this time the townspeople are ready for them. The Duke and King are captured by the townspeople, and are
tarred and featheredTarring and feathering is a physical punishment, used to enforce unofficial justice or revenge. It was used in feudal Europe and its colonies in the early modern period, as well as the early American frontier, mostly as a type of mob vengeance .-Description:In a typical tar-and-feathers attack, the...
and
ridden out of town on a railRiding the rail was a punishment in Colonial America in which a man was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of at least two men, with other men on either side to keep him upright...
.
Rather than simply sneaking Jim out of the shed where he is being held, Tom develops an elaborate plan to free him, involving secret messages, hidden tunnels, a rope ladder sent in Jim's food, and other elements from popular novels, including a note to the Phelps warning them of a gang planning to steal their runaway slave. During the resulting pursuit, Tom is shot in the leg. Jim remains with him rather than completing his escape, risking recapture. Huck has long known Jim was "white on the inside". Although the doctor admires Jim's decency, he betrays him to a passing skiff, and Jim is captured while sleeping and returned to the Phelps family.
Conclusion
After Jim's recapture, events quickly resolve themselves. Tom's Aunt Polly arrives and reveals Huck's and Tom's true identities. Tom announces that Jim is a free man: Miss Watson died two months earlier and freed Jim in her will, but Tom chose not to reveal Jim's freedom so he could come up with an elaborate plan to rescue Jim. Jim tells Huck that Huck's father has been dead for some time (he was the dead man they found in the floating house) and that Huck may return safely to St. Petersburg. In the final narrative, Huck declares that he is quite glad to be done writing his story, and despite Sally's plans to adopt and "sivilize" him, Huck intends to flee west to
Indian TerritoryThe Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
.
Major themes
Twain wrote a novel that embodies the search for freedom. He wrote during the post-
Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
period when there was an intense
whiteWhite people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
reaction against
blacksAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
.Twain took aim squarely against
racial prejudiceDiscrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
, rising
segregationRacial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
,
lynchingLynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
s, and the generally accepted belief that blacks were sub-human. He "made it clear that Jim was good, deeply loving, human, and anxious for freedom". However, others have criticized the novel as racist, citing the use of the word "
niggerNigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...
" and Jim's Sambo-like character.
Throughout the story, Huck is in moral conflict with the received values of the society in which he lives, and while he is unable to consciously refute those values even in his thoughts, he makes a moral choice based on his own valuation of Jim's friendship and human worth, a decision in direct opposition to the things he has been taught. Mark Twain in his lecture notes proposes that "a sound heart is a surer guide than an ill-trained conscience", and goes on to describe the novel as "...a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat".
To highlight the hypocrisy required to condone slavery within an ostensibly moral system, Twain has Huck's father enslave him, isolate him, and beat him. When Huck escapes – which anyone would agree was the right thing to do – he then immediately encounters Jim "illegally" doing the same thing.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/huckfinn/themes.html
Reception
The publication of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn resulted in generally friendly reviews, but the novel was controversial from the outset. Upon issue of the American edition in 1885 a number of libraries banned it from their stacks. The early criticism focused on what was perceived as the book's crudeness. One incident was recounted in the newspaper, the Boston Transcript:
The Concord (Mass.) Public Library committee has decided to exclude Mark Twain's latest book from the library. One member of the committee says that, while he does not wish to call it immoral, he thinks it contains but little humor, and that of a very coarse type. He regards it as the veriest trash. The library and the other members of the committee entertain similar views, characterizing it as rough, coarse, and inelegant, dealing with a series of experiences not elevating, the whole book being more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people.
Twain later remarked to his editor, "Apparently, the Concord library has condemned Huck as 'trash and only suitable for the slums.' This will sell us another twenty-five thousand copies for sure!"
Soon after, in 1905, New York’s Brooklyn Public Library also banned the book due to bad word choice and Huck having “not only itched but scratched” within the novel, which was considered obscene. When asked by a Brooklyn librarian about the situation, Twain replied:
I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' & 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, & it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.
Many subsequent critics,
Ernest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
among them, have deprecated the final chapters, claiming the book "devolves into little more than minstrel-show satire and broad comedy" after Jim is detained. Hemingway declared, "All modern American literature comes from" Huck Finn, and hailed it as "the best book we've had". He cautioned, however, "If you must read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating." (The words "nigger" and "Jim" appear side-by-side once in the novel, in Chapter XXXI, in a letter Huck writes to Mrs. Watson, but they are not used as a name. After "nigger Jim" appears in
Albert Bigelow Paine'sAlbert Bigelow Paine was an American author and biographer best known for his work with Mark Twain. Paine was a member of the Pulitzer Prize Committee and wrote in several genres, including fiction, humour, and verse....
1912 Clemens biography, it continued to be used by twentieth century critics, including Leslie Fiedler, Norman Mailer, and Russell Baker.) Writer
Louisa May AlcottLouisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...
criticized the book’s publication as well, saying that if Twain "[could not] think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses he had best stop writing for them".
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winner
Ron PowersRon Powers is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and non-fiction writer. His face include White Town Drowsing: Journeys to Hannibal, Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain, and Mark Twain: A Life...
states in his Twain biography (Mark Twain: A Life) that "Huckleberry Finn endures as a consensus masterpiece despite these final chapters", in which Tom Sawyer leads Huck through elaborate machinations to rescue Jim.
Controversy
Much modern scholarship of Huckleberry Finn has focused on its treatment of race. Many Twain scholars have argued that the book, by humanizing Jim and exposing the fallacies of the racist assumptions of slavery, is an attack on racism. Others have argued that the book falls short on this score, especially in its depiction of Jim. According to Professor Stephen Railton of the
University of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
, Twain was unable to fully rise above the stereotypes of black people that white readers of his era expected and enjoyed, and therefore resorted to
minstrel showThe minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
-style comedy to provide humor at Jim's expense, and ended up confirming rather than challenging late-19th century racist stereotypes.
In one instance, the controversy caused a drastically altered interpretation of the text: In 1955,
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
tried to avoid controversial material in a televised version of the book, by deleting all mention of slavery and having a white actor play Jim.
Because of this controversy over whether Huckleberry Finn is racist or anti-racist, and because the word "
niggerNigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...
" is frequently used in the novel, many have questioned the appropriateness of teaching the book in the U.S. public school system—this questioning of the word “nigger” is illustrated by a school administrator of Virginia in 1982 calling the novel the "most grotesque example of racism I’ve ever seen in my life". According to the
American Library AssociationThe American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
, Huckleberry Finn was the fifth most-frequently-
challengedThe American Library Association defines a challenge to literature as an attempt by a person or group of people to have materials, such as books, removed from a library or school curriculum, or otherwise restricted. Merely objecting to material is not a challenge without the attempt to remove or...
book in the United States during the 1990s.
There have been several more recent cases involving protests for the banning of the novel. In 2003 high school student Calista Phair and her grandmother, Beatrice Clark, in
RentonRenton is an Eastside edge city in King County, Washington, United States. Situated 11 miles southeast of Seattle, Washington, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington. Founded in the 1860s, Renton became a supply town for the Newcastle coal fields...
, Washington, proposed banning the book from classroom learning in the Renton School District, though not from any public libraries, because of the word "nigger". Clark filed a request with the school district in response to the required reading of the book, asking for the novel to be removed from the English curriculum. The two curriculum committees that considered her request eventually decided to keep the novel on the 11th grade curriculum, though they suspended it until a panel had time to review the novel and set a specific teaching procedure for the novel and its controversial topics.
In 2007 Ibrahim Mohamed, a
North Richland HillsNorth Richland Hills is a city in Tarrant County, Texas, United States, and a suburb of Fort Worth. The population was 63,343 at the 2010 census, making it the fourth largest city in Tarrant County. In 2006, North Richland Hills was selected as one of the "Top 100 Best Places to live in America"...
, Texas, student, requested the word “nigger” be changed to “the N-word”. According to him, the teacher responded by asking him, “Does it offend you? It hurts, doesn’t it?” The exercise that was being done was to put the word into proper context for students, though officials apologized for the teacher’s blunt actions and tone. Despite the apology, Mohamed’s mother wanted the book banned. A group called “The Coalition to Stop the N-Word” requested the school board send a written apology to the family, give sensitivity training to all the teachers, and ban the book based on the feelings of the Mohamed family. In response, the school board said it would try to find better ways in which to present the novel and its controversial content to students.
In 2009 a Washington state high school teacher called for the removal of the novel from a school curriculum. The teacher, John Foley, called for replacing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with a more modern novel.
In an opinion column that Foley wrote in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, he states that all "novels that use the ‘N-word’ repeatedly need to go". He states that teaching the novel is not only unnecessary, but difficult due to the offensive language within the novel with many students becoming uncomfortable at "just hear[ing] the N-word". He views this change as “common sense”, with Obama’s election into office as a sign that Americans “are ready for a change”, and that by removing these books from the reading lists, they would be following this change.
A 2011 edition of the book, published by
NewSouth BooksNewSouth Books is an independent publishing house founded in 2000 in Montgomery, Alabama, by editor H. Randall Williams and publisher Suzanne LaRosa. Williams was the founder of Black Belt Press, working there from 1986 to 1999, and LaRosa worked in magazine and book publishing in New York City,...
,
replacedExpurgation is a form of censorship which involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive, usually from an artistic work.This has also been called bowdlerization, especially for books, after Thomas Bowdler, who in 1818 published an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's work that he...
the word "nigger" with "slave" (although being incorrectly addressed to a freed man) and did not use the term "Injun". The initiative to update the book was led by Mark Twain scholar
Alan GribbenAlan Gribben is a professor of English at Auburn University at Montgomery in Alabama and a noted Mark Twain scholar. He was Distinguished Research Professor from 1998 to 2001 and the Dr. Guinevera A. Nance Alumni Professor from 2006 to 2009...
, who said the change was made to better express Twain's ideas in the 21st century. Gribben said he hoped the edition would be more friendly for use in classrooms, rather than have the work banned outright from classroom reading lists due to its language.
According to publisher Suzanne La Rosa "At NewSouth, we saw the value in an edition that would help the works find new readers. If the publication sparks good debate about how language impacts learning or about the nature of censorship or the way in which racial slurs exercise their baneful influence, then our mission in publishing this new edition of Twain’s works will be more emphatically fulfilled." Another scholar, Thomas Wortham, criticized the changes, saying the new edition "doesn't challenge children to ask, 'Why would a child like Huck use such reprehensible language?'".
Responses to this include the publishing of The Hipster Huckleberry Finn which is an edition with the word "nigger" replaced with the word "hipster". The book's description includes this statement "Thanks to editor Richard Grayson, the adventures of Huckleberry Finn are now neither offensive nor uncool."
Film
- Tom Sawyer
Tom Sawyer is a 1917 Paramount Pictures silent film starring Jack Pickford, Robert Gordon, and Clara Horton; it is based on Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer....
(1917 silent) by Famous Players-LaskyFamous Players-Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company created on July 19, 1916 from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company -- originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays -- and Jesse L...
; directed by William Desmond TaylorWilliam Desmond Taylor was an Irish-born American actor, successful film director of silent movies and a popular figure in the growing Hollywood film colony of the 1910s and early 1920s...
; starring Jack PickfordJack Pickford was a Canadian-born American actor. He was best known for his tabloid lifestyle, marriage to the top starlets of his day, and being of the famous Pickford acting family.-Early life:...
as Tom, Robert Gordon as Huck and Clara HortonClara Horton was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in 88 films between 1912 and 1942. She is buried in Rose Hills Memorial Park.-Selected filmography:-External links:...
as Becky
- Huck and Tom (1918 silent) by Famous Players-Lasky; directed by William Desmond Taylor; starring Jack Pickford as Tom, Robert Gordon as Huck and Clara Horton as Becky
- Huckleberry Finn (1920 silent) by Famous Players-Lasky; directed by William Desmond Taylor; starring Lewis Sargent
Lewis Sargent was an American film actor. He appeared in 80 films between 1917 and 1949.He was born and died in Los Angeles, California.-Selected filmography:* Huckleberry Finn * Oliver Twist...
as Huck, Gordon GriffithGordon S. Griffith was an American assistant director, film producer, and one of the first child actors in the American movie industry. Griffith worked in the film industry for five decades, acting in over 60 films, and surviving the transition from silent films to talkies—films with...
as Tom and Thelma Salter as Becky
- Tom Sawyer
Tom Sawyer is a 1930 American drama film directed by John Cromwell. The screenplay by Grover Jones, William Slavens McNutt, and Sam Mintz is based on the 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain....
(1930) by Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
; directed by John CromwellElwood Dager Cromwell , known as John Cromwell, was an American film actor, director and producer.-Biography:...
; starring Jackie CooganJohn Leslie Coogan , known professionally as Jackie Coogan, was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family...
as Tom, Junior DurkinJunior Durkin, born Trent Bernard Durkin , was an American film actor from New York, New York. Durkin began his acting career in theater while a child. He entered films in 1930, and played the role of Huckleberry Finn in Tom Sawyer , and Huckleberry Finn...
as Huck and Mitzi GreenMitzi Green was an American child actress for Paramount and RKO, in the early talkie era...
as Becky
- Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry Finn is a 1931 American comedy film directed by Norman Taurog. This is another version of the classic novel by Mark Twain and is a follow-up to Tom Sawyer . It isn't a faithful version of the book, as it skips some vital episodes and creates a few others. According to Leonard Maltin,...
(1931) by Paramount Pictures; directed by Norman TaurogNorman Rae Taurog was an American film director, and screenwriter.Between 1920 and 1968, Taurog directed over 140 films, and directed Elvis Presley in more movies than any other director...
; starring Jackie Coogan as Tom, Junior Durkin as Huck and Mitzi Green as Becky
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a 1938 American drama film directed by Norman Taurog. The screenplay by John V.A. Weaver was based on the classic 1876 novel by Mark Twain.-Plot:...
(February 1938) by Selznick International Pictures-Origin:It was founded in 1935 by producer David O. Selznick and investor John Hay "Jock" Whitney after Selznick left Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and leased a section of the RKO Pictures lot in Culver City, California...
; directed by Norman Taurog; starring Tommy Kelly as Tom, Jackie Moran as Huck and Ann GillisAnn Gillis , sometimes credited as Anne Gillis or Ann Gilles, is a retired actress, starting her career in the early 1930s as a child actress and ending in 1947. She later came back into acting for a small part in 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968...
as Becky
- Tom Sawyer, Detective
Tom Sawyer, Detective is an 1896 novel by Mark Twain. It is a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , and Tom Sawyer Abroad . Tom Sawyer attempts to solve a mysterious murder in this burlesque of the immensely popular detective novels of the time...
(December 1938) by Paramount Pictures; directed by Louis KingLouis King was an American actor and movie director of westerns and adventure movies in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. He was born on June 28, 1898 in Christiansburg, Virginia....
; starring Billy Cook as Tom and Donald O'ConnorDonald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...
as Huck [Becky Thatcher was absent from this feature]
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a 1939 film adaptation of Mark Twain's classic novel of the same name, starring Mickey Rooney in the title role.-Cast:*Mickey Rooney as Huckleberry Finn*Walter Connolly as the 'King'*William Frawley as the 'Duke'...
(1939) by MGM; directed by Richard ThorpeRichard Thorpe was an American film director.Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, he began his entertainment career performing in vaudeville and onstage. In 1921 he began in motion pictures as an actor and directed his first silent film in 1923. He went on to direct more than one hundred...
; starring Mickey RooneyMickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
as Huck [Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher were absent from this feature]
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a 1954 film starring Thomas Mitchell and John Carradine
John Carradine was an American actor, best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns as well as Shakespearean theater. A member of Cecil B DeMille's stock company and later John Ford's company, he was one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history...
produced by CBS (http://www.movierevie.ws/movies/890030/The-Adventures-of-Huckleberry-Finn.html)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a 1960 film directed by Michael Curtiz.Based on the famous Mark Twain novel of the same name, it was the third sound film version of the story and the second filmed by MGM...
a 1960 film directed by Michael CurtizMichael Curtiz was an Academy award winning Hungarian-American film director. He had early creditsas Mihály Kertész and Michael Kertész...
, starring Eddie HodgesEddie Hodges is a United States former child actor and recording artist who left show business as an adult.-Early life and career:Hodges was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, U.S. Hodges traveled to New York City with his family in 1952...
and Archie MooreArchie Moore, born Archibald Lee Wright , was light heavyweight world boxing champion who had one of the longest professional careers in the history of that sport....
- The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a half-hour live-action/animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions on NBC primetime in 1968, based on the famous Mark Twain characters.-Plot:...
, a 1968 animated television series for children
- Hopelessly Lost
Hopelessly Lost is a 1973 Soviet adventure comedy directed by Georgi Daneliya based on Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Cinematography by Vadim Yusov...
, a 1972 Soviet film
- Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry Finn is the 1974 musical film version of Mark Twain's American classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.The movie was produced by Reader's Digest and Arthur P. Jacobs and starred Jeff East as Huckleberry Finn and Paul Winfield as Jim...
, a 1974 musical filmThe musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
- Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry Finn is a 1975 American television film adaptation of Mark Twain's famous boyhood novel, Huckleberry Finn. The film stars Ron Howard as the eponymous lead.-Cast:* Ron Howard as Huckleberry Finn* Donny Most as Tom Sawyer...
, a 1975 ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
movie of the week with Ron HowardRonald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...
as Huck Finn
- Huckleberry Finn, a 1976 Japanese anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
with 26 episodes
- Huckleberry Finn and His Friends
Huckleberry Finn and His Friends was a 1979 television series documenting the exploits of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, based on the novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American writer Mark Twain....
, a 1979 television series starring Ian TraceyIan Tracey is a Canadian Leo- and Gemini Award-winning actor. Over the years, Tracey has participated in over seventy films and television series. Tracey has starred in series like Da Vinci's Inquest and Intelligence, both CBC television series produced by long-time colleague Chris Haddock...
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1981)(TV) Kurt Ida as Huckleberry Finn
- Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn (1982) (TV) Anthony Michael Hall
Michael Anthony Hall , known professionally as Anthony Michael Hall, is an American actor, film producer and director who starred in several teen-oriented films of the 1980s. Hall began his career in commercials and on stage as a child, and made his screen debut in 1980...
as Huck Finn
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a 1985 television movie which was filmed in Maysville
Maysville is a city in and the county seat of Mason County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 8,993 at the 2000 census, making it the fiftieth largest city in Kentucky by population. Maysville is on the Ohio River, northeast of Lexington. It is the principal city of the Maysville...
, Kentucky.
- The Adventures of Con Sawyer and Hucklemary Finn, a 1985 ABC
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
movie of the week with Drew BarrymoreDrew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
as Con Sawyer
- The Adventures of Huck Finn
The Adventures of Huck Finn is a 1993 Disney adventure film starring Elijah Wood and Courtney B. Vance; it is based on Mark Twain's novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, though it focuses almost exclusively on the first half of the book...
, a 1993 film starring Elijah WoodElijah Jordan Wood is an American actor. He made his film debut with a minor part in Back to the Future Part II , then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9. He is best known for his high-profile role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's...
and Courtney B. VanceCourtney Bernard Vance is an American actor. He was formerly a regular on the NBC/USA television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent as Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver. He was also a series regular on the ABC series FlashForward. As of 2011, he appears on the TNT series The Closer as Chief...
- Huckleberry Finn Monogatari, a 1994 Japanese anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
with 26 episodes
- Tom and Huck
Tom and Huck is a 1995 Disney film starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Brad Renfro, Joey Stinson, and Rachael Leigh Cook; it is based on Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In the film, mischievous young Tom Sawyer witnesses a murder by the vicious Native American known as "Injun Joe"...
, a 1995 Disney film starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Brad Renfro, Joey Stinson, and Rachael Leigh Cook
- Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry's Big River Rescue
Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry's Big River Rescue is the thirty-sixth episode in the VeggieTales series, and it was released on July 15, 2008. It is written by Phil Vischer and directed by Brian K. Roberts. J. Chris Wall produced the film and Kurt Heinecke composed the score...
, a VeggieTalesVeggieTales is an American series of children's computer animated films featuring anthropomorphic vegetables in stories conveying moral themes based on Christianity...
parody of Huckleberry Finn created by Big Idea Productions with Larry the Cucumber as the titular character. (2008)
Stage
- Big River
Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a musical with a book by William Hauptman and music and lyrics by Roger Miller.Based on Mark Twain's classic 1884 novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it features music in the bluegrass and country styles in keeping with the setting of the novel...
, a 1985 Broadway musical with lyrics and music by Roger MillerRoger Dean Miller was an American singer, songwriter, musician and actor, best known for his honky tonk-influenced novelty songs...
- Downriver, a 1975 Off Broadway musical, music and lyrics by John Braden
Literature
- The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1983), a novel which continues Huck's adventures after he "lights out for the Territory" at the end of Twain's novel, by Greg Matthews.
- Finn: A Novel (2007), a novel about Huck's father, Pap Finn, by Jon Clinch
Jon Clinch is an American novelist and teacher. Originally from upstate Oneida, New York, he graduated from Syracuse University and went on to teach American literature. Formerly creative director for various advertising agencies in the Philadelphia area, he now lives in Vermont...
.
- My Jim (2005), a novel narrated largely by Sadie, Jim's enslaved wife, by Nancy Rawles
Nancy Rawles is an African American playwright, novelist, and teacher.-Life:Nancy grew up in Los Angeles. She graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Journalism....
.
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1973), a simplified version by Robert James Dixson
Robert James Dixson was an American writer who simplified and adapted some classic works of literature, that were later published in their new version, and wrote a number of books about the English language, especially crafted for the foreign born.He lived in New York City and moved to Florida in...
.
Music
- Mississippi Suite
The Mississippi Suite is an orchestral suite in four movements by Ferde Grofé, depicting scenes along a journey down the Mississippi River from its headwaters of Minnesota down to New Orleans.-History:...
(1926), by Ferde GrofeFerde Grofé was a prominent American composer, arranger and pianist. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé.-Early life:...
: the second movement is a lighthearted whimsical piece entitled "Huck Finn"
- Huckleberry Finn EP
Huckleberry Finn is a 2010 EP by Duke Special, featuring songs composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson from an unfinished musical based on Mark Twain's novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...
(2009), comprising five songs from Kurt WeillKurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
's unfinished musical, by Duke SpecialDuke Special, real name Peter Wilson, is a songwriter and performer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A piano-based songwriter with a romantic style and a warm, distinctly accented voice, he has a distinctive look, with his long dreadlocks, eyeliner and outfits he describes as "hobo chic"...
External links
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Digitized copy of the first American edition from Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(1885).
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 125th Anniversary Edition. University of California Press, 2010. Cross-browser compatible HTML edition