Psst! Hey you! Want to read a book your school board banned?

Yes, it's true. Poor Huck Finn has been tossed out of more schools than nearly any other book in print, a victim of the touchy-feely political correctness movement. I know what you're thinking "Was it sex?" Sorry to disappoint you, but no. The objections raised about this book all center on the character of Jim, and the language used to refer to him.

Twain's predominate writing style was to take serious issues and clothe them in a humorous adventure tale. Eminently readable, Twain's best quality is that he uses humor and subtlety to insert social commentary below the waterline. The reader never feels preached to, but the message nevertheless comes through loud and clear. Twain's humorous characterization of Jim is one that offends many in today's world. Jim speaks in an uneducated slave patois and is mortally afraid of spooks and spirits. He is also quite casually and often referred to as a nigger.

Today, this raises a lot of hackles. The overly sensitive read this and immediately knee-jerk to a conclusion that Twain is a racist, and if this novel were written and set in modern times, these people would probably be right. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an incredibly strong anti-racist book. It is a scathing indictment of the institution of slavery that existed at the time of the novel's writing. Twain would no doubt be flabbergasted if he knew that the descendants of those whose cause he championed would one day cry out to have this book banned from schools all over the nation. "Nigger" was just a word to Twain. It was a common term used in every day speech to refer to a black man, and while its use could be pejorative, most of the time it was not. Modern readers with any sense at all will realize this, but reactionaries will probably still clamor for its dismissal for years to come.

The main action of this book takes place during a raft ride down the Mississippi River. Huck and Jim both are flying to freedom, Jim from his owner, and Huck from his drunken father and adoptive family. Along the way they run through some entertaining adventures, picking up traveling con artists that convince the pair that they are disenfranchised royalty, becoming involved in a feud between two families, and of course, dodging the folks who would capture Jim. While entertaining, these adventures are framed by the thoughts and musings of Huck, who is a true prodigy. Like Jim, Huck is uneducated, rough mannered, and superstitious. His ideas are nearly always wrong, yet he arrives at the right decisions guided by his heart. As he ponders his way through the Biblical teachings he has learned, he points out exactly how absurd many of our beliefs are, and his mulling over the problem of Jim highlights how shamefully immoral the institution of slavery is.

Like the Mississippi River itself, Huck and Jim's situation must come to an end, and the problem of what to do about Jim must be confronted. Huck has reasoned out that Jim is another person's property (a notion not dispelled by the Bible's support of slavery), and that he is stealing by helping Jim escape. Huck doesn't believe in a kind, loving deity, but a stern and vengeful God. Everything his reason tells him leads him to one inescapable fact: If Huck helps Jim, he will be damned to hell. It is simply a fact. Huck writes to the Widow Douglas, Jim's legal owner, a letter telling her where Jim is. What follows has been deservedly called one of the best moments in all American literature:


I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking -- thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell" -- and tore it up.


Many literary heroes have sacrificed their lives for the sake of friendship. Here, Huck Finn willingly sacrifices his very soul for his friend Jim. He knows what he is doing is wrong, yet at the same time feels deep down exactly how right it is. Every time I read this it puts a lump in my throat.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an entertaining adventure novel, filled with humorous episodes and wry social commentary. It would be worth reading for its entertainment value alone. Yet by reducing the arguments for and against slavery to a single tale of Jim and Huck, Twain created a powerful anti-slavery tale that his pro-slavery critics could never effectively answer. Do not allow the thin-skinned, reactionary, book banning forces of imposed propriety tell you what you can and cannot read. Buy this book, or check it out from the library if you can't find it in your school. Better yet, the entire text is archived online and is a free 655Kb download at:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id=Twa2Huc&tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/eng-parsed