Why Huckleberry Finn Should Be Banned

Everybody is guilty of taking their luxuries for granted, even items as simple as freedom. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain provides insight on this through two main characters, Huck and Jim, who run away together. In this time period, slavery was a largely controversial topic, and runaway slaves like Jim were frowned upon. Because of ideas like this, Huck had a lot of pressures on him from society to perform certain acts that he did not agree with. Critical people of the time period did not like the idea of a story about a runaway slave, which began the controversy of the novel. Critics today think the book should be banned, however not for the same reasons as what was thought before. They think that this novel is not a noble …show more content…
After Huck and Jim run away, people begin to look for them, including putting out a reward for the person that found them. "There's a reward out for [Jim] - three hundred dollars. And there's a reward out for old Finn too - two hundred dollars" (Twain 42). Jim, a slave, is worth so much more money than Huck, a child to the people that are looking for them. Twain displays that society is corrupt for caring more about a missing slave than they do a missing child. This shows that society was lost in its ability to care about what matters. Because of society's view that black people should be slaves and nothing else, they make a bigger deal out of their actions than they would of any white person. This is impactful on readers today because it teaches readers that society's values and ideals are not necessarily correct, even if most people believe in …show more content…
Many people say that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn sends a wicked message to kids, and teaches them foul language. However, Huck sets many worthy examples, such as not following what everybody is doing in society, and teaching that just because everybody does something, it does not mean that is the right action to take. Huck was scared at first of being called an "abolitionist" for running away with Jim, however he ends up not caring what society thinks of him and doing what he thinks is right(Twain 32). This exhibits a beneficial message to society of taking the right action, despite the beliefs of others around. When ideas are not moral in society, like slavery in this novel, you should not automatically agree with the people that think those harsh ideas are moral. Huck shows even more responsibility when he has the chance to spend money at the circus, "I had my twenty dollar gold piece… but I reckoned I'd rather save it" (Twain 111). Huck is a child, and most children, if given the chance, would spend money on fun activities and objects; however Huck decides that he would sacrifice having fun in order to save his money for something important. This is beneficial for society to know because in today's world, people spend money on all sorts of unnecessary items. It is something that kids do all of the time when they