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Why Huckleberry Finn Should Be Banned

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Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a follow-up to Tom Sawyer, and it dumps us right back in the Southern antebellum (that's "pre-war") world of Tom and his wacky adventures. Only this time, the adventures aren't so much "wacky" as life- and liberty-threatening. Huckleberry Finn is a poor kid whose dad is an abusive drunk. Huck runs away, and immediately encounters another runaway. But this runaway isn't just escaping a mean dad; he's escaping an entire system of racially based oppression. He's escaping slavery. This encounter throws Huckleberry into an ethical quandary (that's a fancy way of saying "dilemma"). He knows that, legally, he should turn in the runaway slave Jim. Problem is, he's also starting to see Jim as a real person rather than, well, someone's property. (Duh, Huckleberry.) …show more content…

and then in the U.S. in 1885, the book was immediately banned—but not for its casual racism and use of the n-word. Nope. It was banned because it was "vulgar," thanks to its depiction of low-class criminals and things like Huck actually scratching himself. Fifty years later, Huckleberry Finn was part of American literary tradition. Both T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway thought it was one of the most important books ever written in the U.S.—but it was still being banned, expurgated, and rewritten to suit a (somewhat) less racist time. Shmoop loves banned books, and not just because we're rebels. We love banned books because a banned book means that someone's buttons are being pressed. And if someone's buttons are being pressed, we know that the book is raising important issues. And boy, does Huckleberry Finn raise some important

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