Huckleberry Finn Argumentative Analysis

The year was 2014 and, as usual, I was procrastinating. At this particular time I was hit with senior itis a full semester early. I had been previously assigned to create vocabulary flashcards for my chemistry class. Facebook was no longer interesting and there was nothing worth watching on television. Therefore, I needed a new form of distraction. My senior friend, Morgan, had recently told me about a book that I would eventually be assigned to read later in the year, so I figured I would pick it up early and see what it was about. The book was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884). Never did I think this attempt for a distraction would begin to change my entire outlook on life. Somewhere among the heavy use of vernacular …show more content…
It is one of the most-banned books in America. The book was first banned a year after its appearance at the Concord, Massachusetts Public Library, but not for its vulgar language. It was described as "rough, course, and inelegant, dealing with a series of experiences not elevating, the whole book being more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people." (Boston Transcript, March 17, 1885) Twain wrote to the library, thanking them for the ban because it would mean that people would have to buy the book in order to read it. Since then the book has variously been praised and denounced. Some call it the greatest book written in America. Others are calling for it to be removed from libraries and required reading lists in schools. Most of the objections revolve around the repetitive usage of the word "nigger". It was used an immense (219) number of times. People claim that forcing black students to read and hear the word used in class legitimizes the slur. When supporters point out that the book is considered an American classic, parents ask why there are no required books which use other racist slurs …show more content…
The first time I picked up the book I flipped to a random page and began to read. I will never forget reading the quote from Pap, “but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin.” (Twain 6.11) The actual quote wasn’t shocking to me because the story takes place in a time of slavery, when blacks were considered inferior to whites, to the point of being considered less than a human. What shocked me was the fact that Twain had written the word so freely multiple times just in that one paragraph alone. After seeing this I made a note for my later research. I questioned Mark Twain’s reasoning for writing in the word instead of using a different term. I found that his intent was to capture the realism of his part of the country. His attention to that specific detail contributed to its realism. In writing in the dialect and the diction of his characters, Twain made them come to