When I finished graduate school in 1998, my first teaching job was at Mountain View High School south of San Francisco. In our opening department meeting of the year, the American Literature teachers decided to no longer teach Twain's novel because of the potential impact it might have on our Black students for its repeated use of the N-word and its minstrel-like depictions of Jim. As a new member of the faculty, I did not raise any objections to the decision, which I knew came from a place of genuine concern for our students.
A little more than a decade later, an English teacher named John Foley from Ridgefield, Washington, garnered national attention when he wrote an op-ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that argued, "The time has arrived to update the literature we use in high school classrooms. Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States, and novels that use the 'N-word' repeatedly need to go." In addition to Twain's novel, Foley suggested that novels like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men should also be removed from school curriculums. "With few exceptions, all the [B]lack students in my classes over the years have appeared very uncomfortable when I've discussed [an author's use of the N-word] at the beginning of the unit. And I never want to rationalize Huck Finn to an angry African-American mom again as long as I breathe."
In 2015, the Friends Central School in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, also made national headlines when it removed Twain's novel from the school curriculum because some students claimed that the novel had made them feel "uncomfortable." In a subsequent letter to parents, the school's principal, Art Hall, explained, “We have all come to the conclusion that the community costs of reading this book in 11th grade outweigh the literary benefits.”
Four years later, two African-American legislators in New Jersey, Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D-Mercer) and Jamel Holley (D-Union), presented a non-binding resolution to the State Assembly proposing to remove Twain's novel from the state curriculum, declaring that “[t]he novel’s use of a racial slur and its depictions of racist attitudes can cause students to feel upset, marginalized, or humiliated and can create an uncomfortable atmosphere in the classroom.”
In response to the growing criticisms of Twain's novel, Alan Gribben, a professor at Auburn University, produced an edited version for NewSouth Books in 2011 that replaced the N-word with the word "slave." Gribben argued that Twain's classic was too important to American literature not to be included in school curriculums because of a "single, singularly offensive word." He added, "For a single word to form a barrier seems such an unnecessary state of affairs."
The backlash against Gribben's edited version was swift. In "Taking the History out of Huck Finn," Jamele Bouie argued that erasing the N-word "doesn't change anything. It doesn't provide racial enlightenment, or justice, and it won't shield anyone from the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination. All it does is feed the American aversion to history and reflection. Which is a shame. If there's anything great about this country, it's in our ability to account for and overcome our mistakes. Peddling whitewashed ignorance diminishes America as much as it does our intellect."
Author Te-Nehisi Coates added in "A Nation of Cowards" that censoring Twain's work is "a shocking act of disrespect toward the writer, executed by people who claim to hold up his legacy. [. . .] Because we can't handle the story of who we were, and evidently who we are, Twain must be summoned up from the dead and, all against himself, submitted before the edits of amateurs. This is our system of fast-food education laid bare: [. . .] Let us all live in a world of warm snugglies. Let the air-conditioning anesthesia sprawl free. May the flowers of happiness multiply out. May Mark Twain's ghost haunt us all."
In "The N-word in Huck Finn Starts a Conversation We Need to Have," David Cazares, a news editor for Minnesota Public Radio, wrote that he understood "how hateful the word is. I'm [B]lack and Mexican-American heritage and have had it hurled at me, along with other vile insults." Nonetheless, Cazares declared that he wanted his 13-year-old daughter to read Twain's classic—with the N-word included—because we "simply can't change history, even or especially if it makes people feel uncomfortable. [. . .] As I try to teach my multiracial daughters about our evolving society, I want them to understand how we arrived at this moment. Huckleberry Finn is a demanding read for young people the first time around. It requires teachers, and parents, to prepare for difficult conversations about history and race. I can't help but think it's better to have such conversations than avoid them."
Many have argued that if teachers want to discuss racism in their classrooms, they should read books written from an African-American perspective—such as Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, or Toni Morrison's Beloved. While those books should certainly be included every school curriculum, I would argue that they should not replace Twain's novel, but rather serve as a complement to it.
What is unique about teaching Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is that it gives students an opportunity to explore not just the impact of racism on minority groups, but the root causes of racism itself. The story is told from the perspective of Huck, a poorly-educated white boy in the antebellum South who has unwittingly absorbed the racist attitudes of his society. During his journey downriver with Jim, however, Huck learns to confront and challenge his own feelings about what he has been taught. By examining the reasons for Huck's racism, Twain allows us to explore how racist attitudes continue to be perpetuated in our society and why it is so difficult for most people to escape their social conditioning.
When Huck first introduces the reader to Jim, he casually refers to him using the N-word, which shows how deeply ingrained these racist attitudes are within him. Twain's novel uses the word 219 times, which is certainly uncomfortable for modern-day readers, but it is meant to emphasize just how prevalent racism was in that time period. To remove or edit its use, as Gribben's version proposes, would make us think, inaccurately, that the society was actually not as racist as it really was.
When Huck seems to ridicule Jim's superstitious belief in witches in the opening chapters, Twain undercuts Huck's patronizing tone by having Huck behave in exactly the same manner a few pages prior when he accidentally kills a spider at Widow Douglas' house:
I didn't need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch
me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up
and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and
then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away.
We must always remember when reading Twain's novel that we are seeing Jim through Huck's subjective, racist lens. Instead of agreeing with Huck's assessment, Twain makes us aware of the hypocrisy of his racist assumptions. Even though it might be difficult to read certain depictions of Jim in the opening chapters, a close reading of the text should reveal that Jim ultimately possesses more humanity, integrity, and wisdom than any other character in the novel.
Twain also makes it clear that Jim and Huck's ignorance is not from a lack of intelligence, but from their lack of a formal education. Huck was raised on the periphery of society by the drunken, despicable Pap— perhaps the worst father in American literature—but Jim's ignorance is a result of the institution of slavery, which prevented Black people from learning how to read and write. Twain makes us consider what would happen if someone like Jim were allowed to go to school through his depiction of the free Black man from Ohio who "was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything."
When Pap encounters this professor in town, he is horrified that he "could vote, when he was at home"—a right and privilege that Pap thinks should belong exclusively to white men like himself: "Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote, myself, if I warn't too drunk to get there [. . .]". Twain's irony makes us imagine a society where all people—white and Black alike—had the opportunity to reach their full potential as human beings based on personal merit rather than the color of their skin. As a white man in this society, Pap was born with freedom and opportunity, which he has subsequently wasted. Twain uses the Black professor to reveal what someone like Jim might have been able to accomplish if he were given a similar opportunity.
As Huck's father and primary role model, Pap is also most responsible for Huck's racist attitudes. Twain makes it clear, however, how we are supposed to feel about Pap's white supremacist ideology when Huck describes his father's skin as being a "white not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl—a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white." Pap's revolting "whiteness" symbolically represents how we should also feel about his racist attitude.
Huck's racism is not just the result of being Pap's son, but is also caused by his living on the periphery of a society where Blacks were not seen or treated as equal human beings. While this racist attitude is most obviously expressed through Pap's rant against the Black professor, it is also more subtly revealed in the respectable middle-class members of society. For instance, when Huck tells Tom's Aunt Sally that a steamship he was travelling on had blown a cylinder-head, she asks if anyone was hurt. When Huck casually says, "No'm. Killed a [N-word]," Aunt Sally reveals her own latent racism when she responds, just as casually, "Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt."
What is remarkable about Huck, however, is that even though he has absorbed the racist attitudes of his society, he also manages to question and challenge those beliefs through his relationship with Jim. As Twain said about Huck's inner conflict, "a sound heart & a deformed conscience come into collision & conscience suffers a defeat." As we observe how Huck's attitude evolves over the course of the novel, Twain makes us reconsider our own sense of morality and how much our understanding of right and wrong is determined by our societal influences.
As Huck travels downriver with Jim, he becomes increasingly aware of Jim's essential goodness and learns to love and respect him as a human being. For instance, when Huck realizes that he has hurt Jim's feelings after making him think their separation in the fog was a dream, Huck says, "It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a [N-word]—but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither." When Jim shares his despair at being separated from his enslaved wife and children, Huck marvels that Jim "cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so."
The irony of Huck's growing love and appreciation of Jim, however, is that he still feels like he is committing a sin by not turning him in to the authorities as a runaway slave. When Huck convinces himself one night to "paddle ashore at the first light, and tell" the truth about Jim, he suddenly feels "easy, and happy, and light as a feather" for easing the pangs of his conscience. Huck is unable to follow through with his plan, however, and instead concocts a story that he is travelling with his sick father—and not Jim, an escaped slave—to keep the bounty hunters from boarding the raft. The irony of Huck's loyalty to Jim is that despite doing what the reader feels is morally righteous, Huck is left "feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong."
The culmination of Huck's internal struggle occurs after he discovers that the king and duke have sold Jim to a local farmer, Silas Phelps, who plans on bringing him to New Orleans to collect the reward money for returning a runaway slave. To prevent Jim from being sold downriver, Huck decides to write a letter to Miss Watson to tell her where she could find Jim, believing that "it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd got to be slave." Before Huck sends the letter, however, he begins to think about his time with Jim on the raft and how kind and loving Jim has been to him throughout their journey together.
As Huck considers how much he loves and cares for Jim, he looks at the letter he has written to Miss Watson and says perhaps the most famous lines in American literature:
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling,
because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied
a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
"All right, then, I'll go to hell"—and tore it up.
The irony in Huck's decision to tear up the letter and commit himself to helping Jim escape from slavery is that he thinks he has condemned himself to eternal damnation by doing so, demonstrating once again the powerful hold that society has had on Huck's understanding of right and wrong.
Huck's newfound commitment to pursuing "wickedness" is complicated somewhat by Tom Sawyer's return in the last section of the novel. When Tom takes charge of their plans to free Jim, he reasserts his authority over Huck in the same way he does at the beginning of the novel. Since Tom is an educated member of a respectable, middle-class family, Huck assumes Tom knows better and reluctantly goes along with his "jackass ideas" in trying to free Jim. While we are frustrated by Huck's inability to reject Tom and his inane plans that put them all in jeopardy, Huck's deference reflects Twain's adherence to literary realism.
When Tom reveals in the final pages of the novel that Miss Watson had already freed Jim in her will—making all their efforts to "free" Jim unnecessary and inhumane—his character becomes even more reprehensible in the eyes of the reader. Tom's disregard of Jim's humanity is juxtaposed with Jim's compassion for Tom after he is shot during their escape. Jim's explanation for why he is willing to sacrifice his own freedom to stay by Tom's side is suffused with irony:
Ef it wuz him dat 'uz bein' set free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say,
'Go on en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one?' Is dat like Mars Tom
Sawyer? Would he say dat? You bet he wouldn't! Well, den, is Jim gwyne to say it?
No, sah—I doan' budge a step out'n dis place, 'dout a doctor; not if its forty year!
Twain doubles down on irony when he has Huck say about Jim afterwards, "I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say." What should be clear to the reader is that neither Tom Sawyer nor any other white person in the novel—save perhaps Huck, himself—would have ever acted like Jim in this situation. Twain intentionally contrasts the innate goodness and morality of Jim with the utter depravity of the white characters in the novel.
Twain makes it abundantly clear that the noblest character in the novel is Jim, and when Huck refuses to allow Aunt Sally to adopt and "sivilize" him in the final pages, it is Twain's final repudiation of the racist society in which Huck lives. For Huck, the civilized world—meaning, the white world—is one filled with hypocrisy and iniquity, and the only way for Huck to retain his essential goodness is to leave that society for good and "light out for the Territory" instead.
The question that Twain proposes is how we can retain—or, perhaps, recover—our own sense of moral goodness. Twain also wants us to consider how conditioned we are by our society in understanding what is fundamentally right and wrong. Twain implies that Huck's internal struggle should also be our own. When Huck's "sound heart" confronts his "deformed conscience," Twain declares that "conscience suffers a defeat." Twain hopes that will also be the case for us.
Twain's novel remains one of the most important works in American literature because it forces us to think critically not only about our nation's past, but also about the type of society we want to create in the future. Even though it is a challenging read and not every student will be emotionally, psychologically, or intellectually prepared to confront the issues that Twain addresses in his novel, it remains the epitome of what great literature is designed to do: namely, to make us confront uncomfortable truths in order to help us become better human beings that are capable of creating a more humane society in the future.
As Harvard professor Jocelyn Chadwick notes, "Good books should cause people to furrow their brows and seek out someone to talk to. That's the job of literature, and that's what Twain achieved in Huckleberry Finn. Twain did not write a novel that's meant to make you feel good." Rather than shy away from the challenge inherent in reading Twain's novel—and the essential discomfort that comes with it—we should embrace the opportunity that it provides instead.