Huckleberry Finn: Controversy Paper


     Huckleberry Finn sets each reader back in a time when we as humans where
inhuman. All the faults of the world was just beginning to show through and
some of the right was being shifted to the side. Just as in Huck Finn, we are
reminded of the race relations that we all still face. Mark Twain does his best
to show the reader the love for one another and the as people and the compassion
we all have hidden inside of us. Ralph Ellison said, "The Negro looks at the
white man and finds it difficult to believe that the "grays"-a Negro term for
white people- can be so absurdly self-deluded over the true interrelatedness of
blackness and whiteness". What are we too think of when we hear this?
     In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain brings out the obvious interrelatedness
that we all share with each other. This book is in the hands of many
intelligent readers and it should not be underestimated by the power that it may
hold. Although, it must hold to its meaning, we can not allow it to steer us to
the wrong's of the world today.
     Shelly Fishkin suggests Mark Twain has "obscured" the African American
roots when writing Huck Finn. Jim, as suggested by Fishkin, has been plagued
with a dialect that should not be represented by the African American race
during that time. The question is raised by Fishkin as to if Huck Finn was
black? This in turn would take away from the whole basic outcome of the moral
lesson that we are all so desperately wanting to hear about.
     I found it almost appalling to see how one author could so easily turn
the goodness of a young white boy and basically call it a lie in the eyes of
Mark Twain. It is up to us as the reader to close our eyes and open our minds
to the whole heartedness of a man kind.