The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: An American Masterpiece

​     One of the wittiest persons ever to have lived is unquestionably, Mark Twain. It takes great powers of observation and skill with words to be witty.  But if you do not understand satire, you might not appreciate his brand of humor.  Satire is the poking fun of human weaknesses and foibles. It helps people to see themselves a bit more objectively. The glitch, however, is that some people mistakenly believe that the author doesn't regard problems seriously, or even worse, that the author agrees with some negative aspect of human behavior.

This is what we are up against with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  The objection for some to this book is the use of the 'n' word.  It is unfortunate that this issue has overclouded the big picture.  Readers must always look beyond to the message of the book as a whole. Those who have read this book and Twain's other writings know that he is not encouraging a derogatory attitude toward black people, but just the opposite.  As a matter of fact, the most important message of the book is about how Huck struggles with doing what is right in the eys of the law vs. doing what is morally right.  Heroically, he chooses to do morally right by helping Jim to his freedom.

So why on earth would Twain use the volatile 'n' word in his book? It isn't as if he sat down one day and thought, "I think I'll write a book that insults black people and makes everyone mad. And if I am really lucky my book will make it to the list of banned books." He was writing a book that was set in a particular time and place. The 'n' word was part of the culture and it was a way for Twain to satirize, or to bring to light, the ugliness of the treatment of black people.  It would be like trying to stage a play of The Scarlet Pimpernel but not using a guillotine as a prop, because it killed people.  The guillotine was a major factor and part of the setting of the French Revolution!

It is no secret that good writers write about what they know.  Twain lived during the Civil War and afterwards. His father kept slaves.  Note, that it was his father that kept slaves, not him. In any case, he was intimately acquainted with that way of life and the attitudes of the time.  He is qualified to write about it.

Twain skillfully uses satire to help us to see our behavior in a non-threatening way. We must face the truth before we can change it. Yet when people feel attacked they cannot listen to the message. Humor defuses a situation. Twain't story is a most entertaining one.

A person who wants to expand their mind and grow as an individual should not avoid reading Huck Finn. If the only works a person reads are those he agrees with, where is growth going to come from? It is in wrestling with contrary ideas and philosophies that sharpen a person's ability to think, to reason, and to draw his own conclusions. Is this not the mark of a truly educated person? The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an American Masterpiece that should only be shelved in your mental library.