Huckleberry Finn and the effect of racial slurs

Reading "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" could be hard for some people based on the way that they interpret certain things and their point of view on the story. Some people often get offended reading that book and want to report it for "inappropriate" language and context. Many tend to confuse those terms with offensive language rather than realizing that the book is written in a realism style, which is a form of a very realistic and blunt writing exactly portraying the circumstance of life when the book was written. A lot of people tend to "attack" Twain and accuse him of offending African Americans back then by using the terms "slave" and "nigger", Twain, however; had no intentions of offending any race, he simply wanted to write a story about how the people were treated back then, even if that meant including strong language and content that could be uncomfortable for most people. Realism can be a very tricky writing style for the reader to figure out, but it only explains the history and just brings forward all the facts that many might not know, but should. In this story of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", Twain wants to show people of all generations yet to come of how exactly life back then was, so then they can "evaluate" life currently to see how and if anything changed or to show them how horribly and unfairly people were being treated.

Comments

  1. I agree with all your points I don't think Twain meant to offend anyone by using racial slurs such as "nigger", he was simply trying to show exactly how rough life was for African Americans in that time period. I also don't think anyone should have been offended by the language used, the book was published nearly 100 years ago, when things were different and everyone knows this.

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  2. I agree with your post. I feel like if Huck Finn was written today by a white person, the language used would be considered controversial but because of the time period it was written in, it isn't an issue because of how society was back then. Twain was just to enhance the realism of the story. I also like your last sentence because it highlights how Twain not only wanted to show the development of society, but also show the audience not to forget the atrocities that happened in the past.

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