When Ernest Hemingway commented that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the best book that we have he was talking about how there are many different themes that were done well throughout that other books can draw from and be inspired by, but it is not the most amazing or best book in the world. This novel is not the best book that there is because of the at times overwhelming satire and the poor, undeveloped ending to an otherwise thought provoking storyline. The satire that Twain used could seem like he was making fun of or rudely imitating the social classes that he was informing his readers of. Satire is meant to add to the story by exaggerating a concept that people over look or bring light to an issue that people naive or wrong about using exaggeration. At times Twain seemed to go overboard with satire. Like when Jim could not be understood at all when he was speaking or when Jim would speak about his superstitions which made him seem dumb and gullible. “Doan’ hurt me - don’t! I hain’t ever done no harm to a ghos’. I awluz liked dead people, en done all I could for ‘em” (41). Jim’s dialect was hard to understand, and that coupled with his outlandish superstitions, most of which are not popular superstition today’s society, caused many readers not to be able to understand what Jim was saying therefore making it hard for …show more content…
Because of this, there has been an ongoing argument about whether this book is appropriate to be taught in schools. Despite these claims the book should still be taught in schools. Though it may not be the best book out there, as Ernest Hemingway once declared, it is a great book for students to learn about satire, relate themselves to a different part of history and read a good coming of age