Introduction When literature, art and culture live, the nation and the people, the whole of humanity lives in peace

3. The world through the eyes of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is written in the first-person point of view, which allows the reader to experience the story through Huck’s eyes and identify closely with the narrator. The story is told entirely from Huck’s perspective, and Huck refers to himself as «I» throughout the novel. Readers experience both external events and Huck’s internal thoughts and feelings from his vantage point. Even when Huck is being deceitful, as when he dresses as a girl and lies to the woman he meets in order to get information about his father, Huck’s actions remain sympathetic, because the reader knows his motivations. In one sense many of Huck’s actions are not that different from the king and the duke – all three tell stories to manipulate people – but because we know Huck’s motives are altruistic, his actions seem justified. We don’t see the story from the perspective of the king and duke, so we can only assume they are as selfish and greedy as their actions suggest. It is necessary for the reader to relate closely to Huck so that the moral stakes of his dilemma about helping Jim are high, and the reader is fully invested in Huck’s decision. Huck can be an unreliable narrator, and his naïve misreading of situations creates dramatic irony, which contrasts Huck’s essentially good nature to the cynicism and hypocrisy of adults. Dramatic irony refers to situations where the reader knows more than a character in a book, and Twain employs it often in Huck Finn. Early on Huck fails to understand that the Widow Douglas prays before taking her meals: «When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them.” ⁷An extended example comes later when Huck goes to the circus. Because he is unaccustomed to the tropes of the performance, he is amazed that the clown has such witty comebacks and that the apparently drunk man in the audience turns out to be a performer: «then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled,»¹³ he says, not guessing the ringmaster is in on the deception as well. These instances develop Huck’s character as innocent and uncorrupted, in opposition to the manipulative and jaded characters he meets with Jim.In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain created a character who exemplifies freedom within, and from, American society. Huck lives on the margins of society because, as the son of the town drunk, he is pretty much an orphan. He sleeps where he pleases, provided that nobody chases him off, and he eats when he pleases, provided that he can find a morsel. No one requires him to attend school or church, bathe, or dress respectably. It is understandable, if not expected, that Huck smokes and swears. Years of having to fend for himself have invested Huck with a solid common sense and a practical competence that complement Tom’s dreamy idealism and fantastical approach to reality (Tom creates worlds for himself that are based on those in stories he has read). But Huck does have two traits in common with Tom: a zest for adventure and a belief in superstition.Through Huck, Twain weighs the costs and benefits of living in a society against those of living independently of society. For most of the novel, adult society disapproves of Huck, but because Twain renders Huck such a likable boy, the adults’ disapproval of Huck generally alienates us from them and not from Huck himself. After Huck saves the Widow Douglas and gets rich, the scale tips in the direction of living in society. But Huck, unlike Tom, isn’t convinced that the exchange of freedom for stability is worth it. He has little use for the money he has found and is quite devoted to his rough, independent lifestyle. When the novel ends, Huck, like Tom, is still a work in progress, and we aren’t sure whether the Widow Douglas’s attempts to civilize him will succeed (Twain reserves the conclusion of Huck’s story for his later novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn).A 1907 article in the Library Journal reported that Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) had been banned somewhere every year since its publication. This novel, written by Samuel Clemens (1835–1910) under the pen name Mark Twain, chronicles the adventures of two young white boys and an escaped black slave who sail the Mississippi River on a raft. Huck Finn, a rebellious teenager, fakes his own death to escape an alcoholic father and throughout the book challenges the mores of his society. Some Americans did not view Huck as a positive role model for young readers. Immediately after publication, the book was banned on the recommendation of public commissioners in Concord, Massachusetts, who described it as racist, coarse, trashy, inelegant, irreligious, obsolete, inaccurate, and mindless. Book became bestseller through controversy.¹⁴Huckleberry Finn has faced censorship in schools and libraries
Since the 1970s, the use of Huck Finn in schools and libraries has been challenged in a number of states. In 1988 a poster for Banned Books Week referred to these challenges by asking, «Would you call Huck Finn a racist?»Twain supporters contend that the author was anything but racist and insist that the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a satire in which Twain sought to highlight the hypocrisy of the society in which he grew up. Defenders of the book also insist that Jim comes across as having more common sense and as being more talented than either Huck or his best friend, Tom Sawyer. These critics suggest that overall the white characters are portrayed more negatively than black characters, citing the extreme piety of Miss Watson and the irresponsibility of Huck’s father as examples. Ironically, Huck Finn was conceived only after an earlier explicit exposé by Twain of slavery was censored. Twain responded by writing what he claimed was a satirical exposé of slavery, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.¹⁵
This article was originally published in 2009. Elizabeth Purdy, Ph.D., is an independent scholar who has published articles on subjects ranging from political science and women's studies to economics and popular culture.
In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain created a character who exemplifies freedom within, and from, American society. Huck lives on the margins of society because, as the son of the town drunk, he is pretty much an orphan. He sleeps where he pleases, provided that nobody chases him off, and he eats when he pleases, provided that he can find a morsel. No one requires him to attend school or church, bathe, or dress respectably. It is understandable, if not expected, that Huck smokes and swears. Years of having to fend for himself have invested Huck with a solid common sense and a practical competence that complement Tom’s dreamy idealism and fantastical approach to reality (Tom creates worlds for himself that are based on those in stories he has read). But Huck does have two traits in common with Tom: a zest for adventure and a belief in superstition.Through Huck, Twain weighs the costs and benefits of living in a society against those of living independently of society. For most of the novel, adult society disapproves of Huck, but because Twain renders Huck such a likable boy, the adults’ disapproval of Huck generally alienates us from them and not from Huck himself. After Huck saves the Widow Douglas and gets rich, the scale tips in the direction of living in society. But Huck, unlike Tom, isn’t convinced that the exchange of freedom for stability is worth it. He has little use for the money he has found and is quite devoted to his rough, independent lifestyle. When the novel ends, Huck, like Tom, is still a work in progress, and we aren’t sure whether the Widow Douglas’s attempts to civilize him will succeed (Twain reserves the conclusion of Huck’s story for his later novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn).¹⁶ As a coming of age character in the late nineteenth century, Huck views his surroundings with a practical and logical lens. His observations are not filled with judgments; instead, Huck observes his environment and gives realistic descriptions of the Mississippi River and the culture that dominates the towns that dot its shoreline from Missouri south. Huck's practical and often socially naive views and perceptions provide much of the satirical humor of the novel. It is important to note, however, that Huck himself never laughs at the incongruities he describes. For example, Huck simply accepts, at face value, the abstract social and religious tenets pressed upon him by Miss Watson until his experiences cause him to make decisions in which his learned.