Why Huckleberry Finn Should Be Banned

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Books are banned for all sorts of reasons. Language, controversy, violence, or whatever the case may be. In the case of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, about the adventures of a teenage boy escaping an abusive life and a runaway slave from the south, and others just like it, including the famous To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which teach about the importance of equality through the eyes of a young girl, the book was banned for the controversy of the topic of slavery and the use of the word ‘nigger’. African American students in the classroom found the teaching of the book, more specifically the use of the term ‘nigger’, to be humiliating and discriminating. Is this really the case, however? Is the use of the word ‘nigger’, or the teaching of the book really meant to be taken as discrimination? Or rather a lesson to prove a point? …show more content…

Literature offers a sense of history through the eyes of the time. Readers might not have been there personally, but the author had. We can learn from this, experience it through the eyes of the characters within a plot. Huck Finn offers its readers historical context of slavery and slave treatment in a pre-Civil War South. Going back on Gribben’s claim on denying the language or ignoring the book, he quotes, “"We could ignore the book, but then we're ignoring history. We're ignoring that that language exists. I don't think, in the long run, that's helpful to our kids."” To deny the language to our students, to let them go on pretending the word does not exist and that slavery never happened, you are teaching them to ignore history. Yes, the topic of slavery can be a painful topic to discuss, especially for those students whose ancestors had been affected by it. However, unless gone over and discussed, we can never learn and prevent the mistakes of our history from recurring. “‘Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat

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