Why Do People Think Huck Finn Is Racist? (Feat. Princess Weekes) | It's Lit
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by American author Mark Twain is both considered one of the great American novels and one of the most frequently banned and contested novels due to its use of the N-word and racial stereotypes. This has launched many debates as to if the work should even be taught in schools.
Today we are going to attempt to crack the case: is Huckleberry Finn an anti-racist work? Or is it just plain ol’ racist?
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Huck stating he'll go to hell rather than turn Jim in is one of the most powerful scenes in American Literature.
Amen.
somehow it's racist now.
Especially because Huck believed hell is real.
@@michaelj4669 no, nobody is saying that is racist. They are having a knee-jerk reaction to the use of the N word. They're missing the point and you're not much better than they are.
@@sprontos what where poor whites called back then mate? if u didn't support the systems in gen back then what did the rich white people call you? i'll give u a hint hard r or hard r lover. but you would erase that from history to fit your narrative huh?
I've never understood how people got the notion that accuracy in a period piece equals a racist author.
Its a sentiment that fits more for people like Lovecraft lol. Which bizarrely people defend him as well since, I quote: “everyone was racist back then.”
@@Pleasestoptalkingthanks All im saying is that if your writing covers interracial interaction in the American south in the 1800's, not using the N word would be whitewashing the past to portray white people as never being racist, and thats just wrong.
Its like if you wrote a book set in 1700's England and made the British seem like they were "Just visiting other nation and convincing them to join the British empire" as opposed to imperializing half the known world through force and opium.
@@Pleasestoptalkingthanks I mean who cares that he was racist. Many of his short stories barely touch on race. He doesn't benefit from any book sales because he died like a hundred years ago. I see nothing wrong with reading Lovecraft with the right context in mind. Edgar allan poe was a pedophile if we apply today's standards. So was the guy who wrote through the looking glass.
@@horizonblack I’m more of an Innsmouth guy myself!
@@Im-Not-a-Dog Yeah, that def makes sense. History not being portrayed or covered accurately is still a huge issue even here in the states.
The thing about Huck Finn I always found fascinating is how it contrasts Jim and his relationship with Huck and Pap Finn and his relationship with Huck. Pap Finn is a horrible person and horrible father leaves his child voluntarily and only returns to steal his money and abuse him. Jim is a good father who is forced to leave his family and tries to return to them so he can raise them. He also forms a parental relationship with Huck standing in as the much better father figure. The fact that a black man was presented in such a positive light, in a clearly superior light and superior relationship to the white man was always fascinating to me. And it is not something I have ever seen people talk about when they discuss the racist or not aspect of this book.
@Painfulstinger i don't think it's that nefarious. Conditioning is a thing, and the turn about of Jim's character can spark a lot of outrage mostly because in any other context it would be seen as a regression of character growth. That said, someone else presented a good point about the shift happening because of the surroundings Jim found himself in and how his survival mindset flipped.
This same contrast presented here is not always obvious or spoonfed, which in a way is bad because it suggests that the impact wasn't as strong enough to showcase how much like a fatherfigure Jim was, but on the other hand is potentially good because it shows that one doesn't have to be bound by blood to be a father or a fatherly figure. It happened organically without being ham fisted.
You're right.
@Painfilstinger I mean I would say Mark Twain was pretty "woke" for his time. If he lived today youd probably hate him lol. He was clearly a lefty. AndI do think "woke" people think that no one was ever antiracist in the history of the world beforethe present day.
The contrast between Jim and Pap struck me while reading the book. There's one point where Jim tells Huck that he was abusive toward his daughter, not realizing that a fever had left her deaf and dumb. The remorse Jim shows is one more mark of a good father (two marks, considering that he confesses all to Huck.)
@@waltonsmith7210 that time period...no he'd have been right wing...the Republican party was the anti slavery party...Abraham Lincoln was a republican
I've always seen it as anti racist especially for the time it was written, given that Jim, a black slave, is the only genuinely good man that Huck encounters in the whole book.
That was done on purpose. Huck Finn it is a completely anti-racist work. But subtleties such as what you’re mentioning have to be understood. Unfortunately todays generation is being taught to see racism where there is often none. They aren’t being told about points like you make because it doesn’t fit the narrative.
@@thewiseoldherper7047 Black men are good people goes against "the narrative"?
Who's against teaching that black men can be good people?
@@therealmikebrown straw man argument
@@therealmikebrownOnly a racist would look at it that way. The narrative not being told people is that the races have much more in common and much less hatred towards each other than society is taught to believe.
@@thewiseoldherper7047 People are being told what they want to hear these days.
The only way not to see the truth is not to look at it.
The is no "narrative" being told to everyone. Everyone believes whatever idiot in a basement with a podcast they want to.
BTW, the idea of "race" is bullshit.
Iv'e always considered Huck Finn to be more anti slavery. However I think it is more nuanced than that. Mark Twain was trying to capture a very turbulent time in history. And the genius of the work is that it is told through the eyes of a child. This allows the reader to come to terms with difficult concepts like death, racism, slavery among others the way a child would. The point of the book wasn't to spell out a message for the reader, it was to guide the reader to start asking questions about the injustices of the world.
Yeah i mean he had a young white kid hanging out with a run away slave. I'm sure racists at the time were not happy about that.
I think ANY argument it is a poor slavery book can be destroyed in seven words. 'All right then, I'll go to hell.'
Also, Mark Twain isn't just trying to capture a turbulent era, he's a figure IN that turbulent era too. It's extremely difficult to parse a zeitgeist while in that zeitgeist. This is not to excuse away some of the potentially problematic aspects, but it should be part of the context when considering this work. So I find it to be antiracist but incompletely so. Nevertheless it remains a voice from a time which stood well outside the white southerner's paradigms (most all white Americans, really), and it's still a lovely if not fraught contribution. But required reading? It doesn't need to be imo.
While I do not remember much from the books I do remember that I read them in my childhood. Nope, no adult needed to tell me that they depicted a wiev of the world from at that time, I figured that out myself.
@@basementmadetapes It could definitely be recommended reading thou.
Literature should always be read with the social structures and believes that took place during it's writing in mind. And than reflect what is and should be better today. Banning and censoring books does not help to learn from the past.
Please tell me you're ESL
@@Richard_Nickerson Clearly, he's not the Electronic Sports League
@@ryuuseiboi950
🙄
I'm afraid if an English/Lit teacher tried to explain the customs and societal norms during the time "Huckleberry Finn" occurs, a student (or students) would complain about how America was being portrayed. Then their parents would protest about CRT being taught in the school. This would probably lead to getting the teacher reprimanded or fired. It's a shame that everything gets blown out of proportion when discussing writings and historical facts.
@@ronbo11 This is the exact reason. These people don't ever want to confront the past.
Throughout the story, people keep telling Huck to "do the right thing and return the slave to a master" as if it's wrong to free a slave, but in the end Huck is like "If this is wrong, I don't wanna be right!"
We have to remember that if Jim puts a foot “wrong” at any time, the penalty is DEATH. My favorite moment is when he severely defines “trash” to Huck, and that child - against all his rotten training - apologizes for causing this mature man grief.
thanks. this was always the scene that sat with me most as well. Huck doesn't recognize how much he hurts jim but he is forced to come to grips with that.
If he is so mature why is he following a child?
Well if you were considered merely property like a purebred dog, lots of people would want to catch you, look for your owner, keep you, or sell you and for females breed you to another dog.
@@DeviantDork The story is told from Huck's perspective, so Huck obviously sees himself as the protagonist of the story. But because of the times Jim is forced to rely on Huck for help because Huck, as a white boy, has social protection and access that Jim, a runaway slave, does not. Jim becomes a father figure for Huck that is contrasted sharply with Pap Finn, and they have to rely on one another to get by. Huck relies on Jim because Huck is a child and naturally dependent on Jim's adult guidance. Jim relies on Huck because Jim is a fugitive slave with nobody else to count on except Huck, who can use the color of his skin together with his silver tongue to shield both of them from danger.
@@carsonm7292 That'd actually a very clever plot device on the part of Mark Twain when you break it down like that.
Huck Finn racist??
NO!
Does it take place in racist times?
YES!
You got it in one. The book was first banned in the south because it was said to be too anti-slavery at a time when the south was licking its wounds over the American Civil War. They tried to ban the book again in the 1980s. There is an episode of Family Ties in support of this novel.
THAT MAKES NO SENSE.
@@walklikeyoutalk1624 what makes no sense?
Are people worried that it's a racist book, or are they worried that it makes them confront their racist history?
@@umjammerlammy9993
I think both.
Some think it is racist because of the infantilism of black people & the “Magical Negro Trope”
&
Some are uncomfortable at talking about hateful things being done in the USA & some feel “white guilt”
"Huck Finn, the first gone girl." 😂
No lie tho, looking at the illustrations reproduced here, I couldn't stop seeing a trans boy...
@@akhragee OP 999999999o999ok
In the novel Huck tried to pull a con that didn't work. That's it.
@@akhragee Huh? Literally just a… child
Huck finn =fakes death goes on adventure
Gone girl = fakes death . Falsly incriminates people . Kills innocent people . Perverts truth and justice
Yes definitely the same 🙄
Why do people make amy seem like a hero . Shes a total monster
I think we have to remember that Huck Finn is a novel, not an essay. MT exposes the hypocrisies and cruelty of society and individual characters. The awful stuff with Huck’s abusive father is stated in a pretty matter of fact way. Huck’s views themselves are extremely limited. And if I remember correctly, Jim has the dignity to get angry with Huck at some point when Huck plays a mean prank. Jim is actually the only compassionate, moral person in the book…
MT is definitely critical of his world, but as a comedian and a satirist, he exposes the darkness through irony and parody. His views are implicit.
If you want non-fiction, try Frederick Douglass’s autobiography. It’s just incredible.
I wrote a paper in high school based on it's reading as anti-Racist discourse. I was not allowed to finish my presentation, was sent home, my suspension was bartered down detention by my parents. It was a coming of age moment seeing my parents and teachers I admired in a completely different light. By the way, I'm from Cincinnati where Samuel Clemens is just as well known for investing in new technology as for the books he wrote.
You were suspended for writing a paper? That's insane.
Those grown ups did not understand the book XD
Were you suspended because the school didn't agree with your thesis or because the book was banned but you read it anyway? Either way, that is insane!
Defeats the purpose of academia.... True learning, actually teaching valuable skills requires facing adversity, including on the ideological level.... No wonder so many people have become so petty as to devolve into "your wrong because I say so" instead of using intellectual skill and having the patience to respectfully listen, even to those you disagree with...
You’re badass. Way to rile some feathers
Honestly I always saw the change of Jim's character simply because of the change of scenery. I mean, one thing is being around your new buddy and another is being surrounded by people that might shoot you or worse. Of course he would be more "submissive" he knows that's the way to survive in such a situation, if anything that switch gives depth to the character imo
That is an interesting point, code switching for survival.
That would make a lot of sense, actually.
Like, I don't think we can totally dismiss that Twain kinda chickened out... BUT switching to servile, anything to help the white boy in a time we know was deadly to be thought of as anything but for black people would make sense.
I kind of wondered about that too. We know Huck met him when he was already on the run, but he was a slave before that. How he acts with Huck is who he is, but he's probably got a "servant mode" when around certain people. This happens a lot with retail workers and waiters that we even joke about the "service face / voice"
And then giving up a chance to run to stand by someone who (he believed) was helping him. I mean, that’s empathy. That’s having a sense of right and wrong. Then when the ruse is revealed he hardens instead of lashing out. Would you rather he run (showing him to be selfish)? Would rather he lash out (playing into the stereotype of an “aggressive black man”)?
In writing, nothing shows the complexity of a character better than having them work against their goals for the sake of their morals, at least in my experience.
@@ginger-ale7818 I'm quite sure that Twain wrote Jim's behavior in that context to depict him as a honorable and kind man, who would stand by those who had helped him even at the cost of endangering his own life and freedom. I guess one major factor that makes us modern readers feel uneasy with the story is the stereotypical depiction of the "simple" black slave. Twain might have been firmly against slavery and the injustice that was done against black people, but he wasn't free of the racial prejudice of his time, and that shows in the way he depicts the character.
I always saw Jim's change of character in the final act of the story (which, like Hemingway, I consider to be the weakest part of it) to be his intentional resorting to a common defense mechanism in reaction to being caught in a dangerous situation. Many slaves would pretend to be more passive and less intelligent than they actually were, to appear less threatening to, and thus decrease the likelihood of abuse from, the wealthy planters who had absolute power over them in that time and place. Earlier in the story, specifically in the chapter "Was Solomon Wise?" (Chapter 14), Jim is shown to be highly intelligent, albeit uneducated about the world outside his own environment, when he easily defeats Huck in a debate over the existence of foreign languages, which Jim disbelieves in when Huck tells him about it. The key to understanding the message of the novel is to look at it in the context of the time and place it was written. It was absolutely one of the most fierce and biting anti-racist works of 1880s America, and many white Southerners of the time were enraged by this. If robbed of this context, and judged as if it had been written in 2021, it certainly comes across as being "racist", due to the frequent use of the "n-word" that was endemic to the dialect the book was written in and the "minstrel" stereotypes that were hard-wired into 1880s American thought.
Did you read Robert Paul Lamb?
The imporTan T passage is ThaT
The male black Slave was free
The book in ITs essence describe
ThE Time + End of black Slave's in USA
i agree wiTh ThaT black people
should be free
Mark Twain: *enlists in the Confederate Army*
The Confederacy: "We are fighting to preserve slavery!"
Mark Twain: "Oh never mind. Y'all have fun, I'm going to write books"
In one of his articles, Twain wrote about his brief experience in a local militia company. The romance of soldiering ended for him when his unit shot down a civilian, and they had to watch him die.
The confederate army would never say that they are fighting for slavery, just the same way the same way the union army never mentions abolitions. It would be ridiculous for the predominantly racist public to think that they are making such huge sacrifices for the sake of black people either to enslave them or free them. Especially since most white southerners are not even slave holders.
@@samhu5878 The South was undeniably for slavery. Every single letter of secession mentions as the primary, if not sole, factor behind their decision to rebel and declare war
@@aetherkid Actually not every single succession letter mentioned slavery - only just over half…
@@allangibson2408 But they did mention states rights. And states rights to the south, meant without any stretch of the imagination, owning slaves. It's not a matter of opinion. Sounds like you've drank a bit of the lost cause kool-aid.
When I read the book at a young age, my parents told me that it was written in the language of the time. My family is strongly anti racist. I knew not to say the "n" as it was hurtful to our Black friends and neighbors. I saw it as a story of friendship. Jim was Huck and Toms' friend. I saw Jim as a human being who was treated horribly because of his ancestry. My paternal grandfather was a first generation Italian American. I understood discrimination from the stories that he told me about his life growing up. I'm certainly not trying to lesson the evil of slavery, just saying that my young mind understood unfair treatment from the experiences of my relatives. Right or wrong this was the take from the perspective of an 8 year old white kid in the 1970s.
@@Emissary355 Your description is accurate today. Back in the 70s I saw older members of black families loose their sh*t on younger family members who used the "n" word. The older family members did not want to hear the word that people used to degrade dark skinned people. Yes, some rap uses that word frivolously and quite frankly I don't like it myself. Older black folks told us young kids awful stories as lessons how not to treat people. Just like my late Italian American grandfather did not want to hear the word "dago." It really bothered him as he'd been called that word by people who didn't care for Italians or immigrants. While there are some black Americans who do use the "n" word, there are black Americans who never say that word and don't care to hear to spoken by anyone.
@@funzjag I wish all black people would stop saying that offensive word. It's time to get rid of all racist words, they only belong in the history books to teach future generations how wrong they were.
@@Emissary355 I really don't care for that horrible word either. Here's how it pertains to me personally. I live in West Virginia. Many people did and some still maliciously call us "hillbillies." Well, myself and quite a few other folks who live in these hills use "hillbilly" to proudly describe ourselves. I've even had people say " NO, you are a kind gentleman. " I have to explain that "hillbilly" to me is a proud description of how and where I live . So, I somewhat understand the comendeering of negative terms and making them positive. Honestly, I really don't like the "n" word because of the hurt and anger that I got from the older black folks who explained things to in the '70s. Those folks had gone through some horrible things. They didn't tell me everything because I was a little boy but I knew that it must have been really bad. It especially made me sad because these older folks were very kind to me the white kid, my friend of Asian decent, and my Mexican American friend. They didn't hold a grudge against whites. Oh, one more thing. Have you ever been called the "n" word by a black person as a sign of respect? I have and it's really a strange thing. I knew it was a high compliment but I didn't know how to respond.
Kids are smarter than we give them credit for; probably smarter than a lot of Congressmen.
ah good, you learned to never say the dreaded word "no"
"Politically, Twain got a lot more radical the older he got"
That's usually the other way around, so good for him.
Twain continued to learn throughout life which I believe is the key to overcoming most of the worlds ills.
Good for him
@@doctordragon9798 Pretty much this.
@@doctordragon9798 Nah, it's just a poor framing of the fact that the younger generation is always going to be more open to radical changes of the current situation than the prior one is. It's not the older getting more conservative, it's the younger changing the bar for the word "radical".
I am more liberal now than I was in my HS and college days. Being out in the world opened my eyes.
Jim is the only sensible adult in the novel.
I don't remember much of the book, but I do remember interpreting him as the only real adult in the room. Stuck with the responsibility of prioritizing spoiled children over himself.
I’ve heard people say that Jim’s portrayal is racist because he’s portrayed as uneducated and superstitious and that’s never sat well with me. Jim is uneducated, sure, but he’s easily one of the most morally good people in the book and it’s pretty obvious that the other characters are not in the right to treat Jim the way they do. Jim’s ‘trash’ speech comes to mind.
@@Mordrevious Criticizing Jim for being uneducated and superstitious is one of the most moronic things I ever heard. How would a slave banned from real education be educated, and if you're uneducated you're likely superstitious as well.
@@chris7263 Tom is spoiled, Huck isn't. Huck isn't an adult though.
I remember reading Huck Finn in high school. And I also remember reading the last couple of chapters and wanting to hit Tom with a heavy object because he was being such a huge idiot.
Omg yes!! I hated Tom at the end of the book.
@@healinggrounds19 I also read Tom Sawyer and I hated him in that book too XD
I think you were supposed to hate him, he was a dumb kid with nothing to lose who didn't understand how Jim's situation was.
From the beginning of the book to the end Tom was always a dumb kid
Well put. My sentiments exactly.
This kind of reminds me of a quote I heard once. The gist was that for someone who considers themself a progressive/radical/revolutionary the goal should should be to create a world where they themself would be condemned as a reactionary. It's a joke, of course, but points to the idea that even those who are working against one or more of the injustices of our time are likely to be missing several others. I feel like that's what's going on with writers like Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and why it is hard to put their work in "racist vs. not racist" boxes. They were being actively anti-racist by the standards of their time (certainly anti-slavery), but from the perspective of our time still clearly had some unfortunate racial biases remaining. So we can both appreciate what they were trying to do and be uncomfortable about the bits they didn't do quite right.
I feel like for that reason it's better to use the language of the time they'd have used for themselves, like abolitionist.
Yep. That's a form of humility we often forget to use when we're out trying to save the world.
That was Proudhon, was it not?
@@eritain Yup, our grandchildren (or great great grandchildren in this case) will be able to see our mistakes much more clearly than ourselves, that is life, 'progress' is maybe too loaded a term, but it is to do with the passage of time imo.
Emily, you've hit the nail on the head. If Mark Twain had been born 40 years ago, I suspect he would see the world very differently. Whereas if I'd been born in my great great grandmother's place, I am sure I would be racist by today's standards, maybe even by the standard of the day, because environment counts for a lot in one's world view.
Good discussion, but I’m a little surprised by her failure to even mention the moral heart of the book. Heck’s decision not to turn Jim in when all conventional morality told him to do so is profound, moving, and radical. There’s little defense for the trashy ending, but I sometimes suspect that it’s part of the book’s disguise. It was sold, by subscription, as another rollicking, droll tale of boys’ adventures, not as a subversive tale grappling with child abuse, slavery, and the nature of morality.
Tom has a child's plan. He's well-read, but a child and thinks in terms of the stories he's read. Which means convoluted silliness.
That's why Huck falls in line with Tom's plan. He always had the opinion that because Tom was more educated and "knew more about this kind of thing" that he should have listen. Huck doesn't realize that he and Tom live in two completely different worlds; Tom lives in the world where everything he reads from fantasy and fiction must be true while Huck lives in the world that is reality because he gets slapped in the face with it every single day but he still is willing to listen to those he sees as more educated and above him
@@BigBWolf90 And Tom because he was from a respectable family thought he was better than Huck.
Pretty common way for people to think, both children and adults. You ever see the attitude of a politician who comes from a dynasty of politicians? Their ego couldn’t fit in Texas.
@@hayleybartek8643- Or Africa.
@@BigBWolf90
It’s also because, while tom’s plans and follies usually ended badly, he still sometimes succeeded, which gave huck enough reason to keep trusting him.
Teaching English literature in a multidisciplinary way, such as including history, science, etc. is an ideal way to show these complex subjects. It takes a good teacher to get everything across the proper way, though.
Unfortunately, required curriculums and low salaries don't really allow for that
Huck Finn is a book about baby-steps. Huck grew into empathizing with his friend, almost looking at him as a brother as they went along. It's not perfect, sure, but Mark Twain baby-stepped so modern writers can run.
I was thinking about this recently, and how it's the case in a lot of media for controversial topics. A lot of people criticize the hand-holding at the end of "The Legend of Korra" as coming out of nowhere and being unsupported and negligible in terms of LGBTQ representation, but it was the first cartoon marketed to children to do even THAT MUCH, and the creators had to fight Nickelodeon every step of the way to get it. And since Korra took that baby step, we've gotten quite a bit more clearly-shown LGBTQ representation in broadly-distributed children's media.
That's why Huckleberry Finn needs to be presented with historical context and among other works that directly address racism (as suggested in the end of this video), to see where it fits in evolving perception of racism.
Huck Finn is likely even more contentious in its portrayal of Native Americans (itself a problematic concept that's like lumping Kurds with Turks and the Yazidi because they live or lived near each other), which is a feature most readers miss.
Would this novel even be in the canon of literature if it were a simplistic children's story? Any novel has to exclude or at least not fully develop the perspectives of some characters or situations in order to be coherent enough to be read. The alternative is to develop a Rashomon approach to storytelling.
This novel cannot be legally discussed in Texas public schools now. It pushes all of the hot button issues that that State's government wishes to disappear from history. That's an even sadder reflection on our time than on Twain's.
In support of your point, I do not remember the Native American portrayals in the book, and only the last few years have I immersed myself in understanding Race with Indigenous Americans and the sort of big story of white supremacy and its victims.
@@jso6790 Those issues are more in Tom Sawyer.
Can you cite where huck finn is banned in Texas schools. I need it for a research paper but I'm turning up nothing
I read Huck Finn in a Texas high school in the 1990s. As far as I know this book is not "illegal" in school. Can that be a legal law? I mean some schools refuse to add certain books or teachers may just choose a different book, and in some cases around the world, including the US, outright ban books from curriculum. But here, it usually causes a protest if there's an actual ban attempted. Especially statewide. Statewide makes no sense to me.
@@andreamiller3578 I read Huck Finn in Texas in the 90s as well. I can't find anything to corroborate the claims made.
The most I can find that the book has been "challenged" in some counties but that's it.
I remember reading Huck Finn in high school as a kid and I really enjoyed it, UNTIL Tom Sawyer comes in and takes over the story. It was clear Huck was growing and learning to accept Jim as a person. So I don't think his character is racist (or at least racist by the end) because the point is that we see his character arc. But that is completely cut short when Tom takes over and treats Jim like a prop in a game. Tom Sawyer is definitely racist, he doesn't care about Jim or his freedom. I kept expecting the whole point of his inclusion in the story was for Huck to show his growth as a character by telling Tom off and not being so submissive! But he doesn't, or at least not as much as I wanted him to. I certainly wouldn't consider the book racist as a whole, but I do think that it hurts it's anti-racist message with a bad ending.
I almost put Huck Finn down at that point because Tom was driving me insane. I wanted to choke him. The worst part is that his shenanigans were so unnecessary.
Agree. I read it when I was young and don't remember specifics, but I really didn't care for the ending.
It is an everyman stoic novel. Just because Huck and Jim have transformed to more enlightened and cooperative souls... That doesn't mean the rest of society has changed a wit. ...
But we can't control the thoughts of others, nor do we have an unalienable right to do so.
Twain the Libertarian.
With Tom the society of their time comes back to the story, so of course they change their behaviour. Especially Jim, because he could get punished for speaking or acting a certain way.
I never liked Tom much even in Tom's book but his attitude was more despicable in Huck's tale like i was seriously turned off
It's a semi-accurate portrayal of a particular era and culture. Censoring or banning such a thing would be tantamount to denying parts of our own pasts. Its not a comfortable aspect of our history, nor did Mark Twain ever downplay the discomfort, but slavery, racism, child abuse, thoughtless fun at others' expense, and moral ambiguity are all themes that Twain addresses boldly and a bit realistically. I have never watched another human being get struck until he or she is bleeding from the blows, or cowered in fear of my drunk father coming home after a week-long bender to tear apart the book I'm secretly reading, but plenty of people have, and I hope their experience is never invalidated because someone has problems with Twain's description of the experience.
Mark Twain is a needful teacher in any era. His short story "The War Prayer" is a brilliant satire in whose furious text is a broken dreamer's sense of loss and tragedy for the human race.
As sad and enfuriating history can be its always worth teaching it to show the mistakes of the past so people never repeat them
Edited and still full of errors
@@Richard_Nickerson you can understand what he's saying can't you? Don't be a prick.
They don't repeat them. They just found new ways to keep it going.
Unfortunately few learn from history, thus it repeats until they do.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do learn are doomed to be the lone voice in the wilderness howling impotently trying to stop them from repeating it.
I always liked how my teacher handled the book, especially how she disliked when Tom came back. As he resets all the character growth Huck had achieved.
She also stressed its good that the N-word made us uncomfortable in class, showing us how inappropriate and offensive a word can be.
She sounds like a smart woman
You can make ppl uncomfortable without using traumatic and violent racial slurs lol
@@stephaniewilliams6756 I don’t think you understand the point of using it in this context then if thats your takeaway.
@@Pleasestoptalkingthanks Nah, I read the book and I stick by the fact that using the word Negro will have the same effect on both black and white people without feeling as traumatic.
Also, P.S. there has to be a way to teach both white students and POC students without putting the precedent that white people need to be educated first or as the precedent for how everything needs to be taught. There are things POC been knew and it's annoying when we have to deal with things at the sacrifice of white students, even other POC sometimes, "gaining an understanding". It just oozes BS.
@@MarieMaia445 “Kneegrow” is just as offensive as hard R N. The spelling matter of it is arbitrary, you only feel that way because Hard R lasted into contemporary times while Kneegrow is considered “archaic”.
On your second point, it doesn’t matter if POC students come from a more culturally sensitive background than whites; neither party is inherently/mechanically more knowledgeable on the topic (around that age) and thus treating it as a race to decide who’s more accommodated is irrelevant to actually learning the content. This is a new generation of students, they have not had the same experiences as their forerunners yet.
I studied Huck Finn in 11th grade, while I was also taking AP US History and I got way more insight into the book from discussing it with my history teacher than my English teacher. She was able to give a lot more context to what was going on politically and socially at the time that informed the book as well as explain the allegorical meaning of a lot of the plots in the book.
I definitely see this as an anti-slavery and a very human novel. And it is very nuanced. What didn't get explored in this critique is that at the end of the novel how Huck fails. In the beginning, he escapes his father and finds himself with Jim on the river. Jim on the river, is as free as he can be and so we see him come out far more. This whole time he and Huck are on the river, Huck is presented with an opportunity to see Jim as a full human being. At the end of the novel, Huck falls right back into following Tom Sawyer and Tom's latest hair brained schemes for for the adventure of it all, which if given a choice is exactly what Huck would have been doing at the beginning of the novel. Huck didn't really learn a damn thing in all his time on the river with Jim. Jim winds up being the most human and humane character in the whole book. Twain didn't do that by accident. It's also no accident that in the end you want to take Tom Sawyer to the nearest woodshed and beat sense into him.
As for teaching this in schools--I have to admit I didn't get it when I read this as a kid (I was probably twelve when I first read this novel.) When I read this as an adult, I was completely floored with what I was being confronted with. I do think the novel needs to be taught, and while I'm tempted to say that it should be taught in college, you lose exposure to anyone who doesn't go to college. White and Black Americans need to be confronted with what appears in this novel. Senior level high school English class is where this belongs.
Yes, I think as a child I didn't understand a lot of the context, especially the ending.
I think it's a great novel in that, for a child it presents you with the adventure and romance of living on the river, and as an adult it reveals a profound commentary on many social ills including racism and slavery. I would even argue that college kids might not be mature enough to get it and that it's a great read for many adults.
The book and its containing language is a product of its time.
Why should people want to forget it and run the risk of repeating all the mistakes that made the mindset of that time possible in the future again?
Wouldn't it make more sense to educate people about the world the book was written in?
(Sry, my bad english)
I agree that it's way better to learn from these kind of books than to simply ban them. Although, we must be carefull when saying "it's a product of its time". Most of the time, people were criticizing these things back then too.
Because in a nutshell they dont want to 'learn' and believe they only have the right awnser.
@@Hivedragon That's the problem once you start thinking you know everything, you run the risk of doing the same mistakes all over again.
@@nealsterling8151 the people that know everyone know nothing
@@Hivedragon No, because we all have egos and don't like being insulted repeatedly. Political correctness is a multicultural reform movement against bigotry in media.
There should be a consideration of intent and content and the author as well: Twain was racist in his own right, especially towards native Americans. However, his intention was to show the ultimate humanity and dignity of African Americans, and it is ultimately an anti-racist work. The racist language comes from the unfortunate period.
People use Huck Finn and Blazing Saddles to either justify using racial slurs or condemn them no matter what the context, but both interpretations are removed from the context of the actual use.
At this period of writing, you are correct. He also disliked First Nations Peoples and especially Chinese. Twain/Clemens was an extremely complex continuously evolving personality, driven by family, finances, social status and sarcastic sense of right/wrong. Later in life it is hard to say if he still held these same negative beliefs. Some of the writings show some softening.
I believe his dislike of Native Americans started on his cross country stage coach ride as writen in Roughing It. Some event happened that instantly revolted him. But I have not read it in his notes
Twain explicitly singled out Chinese. He was quite warm to other Asains and Pacific Islanders. I suspect this bias grew from his time in California and the general disgraceful negative attitude of the USA in the 1870s toward the Chinese.
Mr. Clemens was little different from anyone today, one tends to marginalize those who we don’t relate with.
you know some native American tribes used to carry out literal genocides against other native American tribes as well as stealing their woman and children. I strongly doubt Twain was actually racist against any or all native Americans because they would differ greatly from tribe to tribe. Some were war-like, some less so. Either way everyone brutally fought and killed each other and yeah, some native Americans were pretty damn savage when you look at the child sacrifices and brutal killings and raids on civilians etc.
I don't think race has as much to do with it but instead fear which lead to violence which lead to retaliation.
@@Spoonwranglerz It was only a matter of time before racists show up on these kinds of threads
I read the book on school vacation when I was about 12. I read it again recently, and picked up on the brutality (especially the child abuse from his father) Huck faced, and how he rebelled in his own way against society and racism. He was just a child. He smoked pipes and lived on his own, but he was still a child. I think Mark Twain was a product of his times, depicting Jim as a stereotype. I still always loved Huck's and Jim's friendship. Against the world, all they really had was each other.
Interesting fact: Twains house in Connecticut (where he wrote Huck Finn ) is next door to Harriet Beecher Stowes house. They were neighbors!
Also, HBS coined the phrase white trash.
Anytime we compare an older work to our current modern morality it's always going to fall short. I like the idea of pairing it with other works so the student gets the full context of the situation. But
Wasn't Huckleberry Finn like a serialized story in a magazine before it was collected into a book? It's pretty impressive that a story that was basically a "Hardy Boys" type story collection dealt with such a serious issue when a lot of stories didn't.
Most novels at the time were originally published as serialized works in magazines. Charles Dickens' works were also originally serialized. That is why they can be convoluted in terms of plot and with lots of characters that are easy to remember, they needed to maintain people's attention week after week as each instalment came out
Twain got stuck writing it, I think it took him ten years. If it was serialized, it must have been serialized after he had already finished it, or else it broke off when he hit his writer's block.
What people forget with so many old works is that they will always be a product of the time and the authors conditioning. Even if a creator is pushing in the right direction, most humans can't usually handle facing the depths of their society's injustice. Now we can and should discuss at what level fictional works that don't condemn problematic views by today's standards should be taught, but that they should remain should not be in question.
Fighting for justice in our day and age is like repairing the damage of a toxic dump. Just because we have to deal with the damage left behind, doesn't mean we should sneer at those that drained the dump because they couldn't see how deep the poison ran.
no there are def timeless books that does not necessarily hurt anybody.
I have my degree in English. Twain has been one of my favorites for many decades and I feel you have portrayed him in a good light from troubling times. You’ve given me much to think about and I greatly appreciate your perspective on the text. I think the idea of putting Huckleberry Finn in context with a larger discussion on racism in America is wonderful. I don’t believe excuses need be made for troublesome passages but context means so much and you’ve given me a better understanding of the context.
Huckleberry Finn is the greatest anti-racism book of all time. Jim was hands down the most intelligent and practical character in the book.
I need to re-read it. It’s been like 20 years
I feel like some Americans at the time felt that bringing "civilization" to people of improverished nations was a good thing, but completely disagreed with rhe violence used to carry out such task. Mark Twain and the guy that wrote Robinson Caruso seem like two examples
It's a bit of a stretch to say that Mark Twain and Daniel Defoe (who wrote Robinson) were of the same time. Defore died just over a hundred years before Twain was born.
Even that seems a little uncharitable. The Phillipenes were legitimately unstabilized from years of fighting wars with the Spanish who were not above scorched earth policies. And of course the Phillipinos themselves were divided to fsction. So less civilized them as help them establish a stable and well functioning government to better facilitate their independence. At least Twain saw it until he realized we were there to colonize.
@@Quirderph Also not American.
I feel that we should teach historical context with literature like this.
Literature that deals with race. Also literature that deals with rights of various other groups. It’s a great opportunity to engage in conversation and discuss history and it’a contemporary implications.
When we read this in my advanced English class that was about half white half black my teacher told us she wouldn't be censoring the language and no one had a problem with it. We can't learn from history if we try and wash away all the historical nuance.
I was seven when I red this book for the first time. Even I am not from USA, I understood this book as a story against racism in America. I understood how cruel and unfair was to "own" another person. Twain made it christal clear through the book.
I understood how people at that time had different views than we have now, and how they were bordened by the rules of their society, and saw it as a story about survival of two powerless people who could only count on their friendship, cooperation and their wit, a boy and a slave, and I could sympathize with both of them, as I felt that I was also powerless as a child. It is still one of my favourite books, and I loved both characters. Also, for me, the book finished at the moment Huck and Tom met on that road, the rest of the book I found irritant and wrong. I hated that part, and I didn't like Tom's chatacter in it at all.
I even fantasized of another ending :) that's how much I loved this book.
the problem is it is sensibe for some ppl
With books like Huck Finn, I'm always reminded of another book-- "The Female Man" by Joanna Russ (published 1970). It is a book that deals with feminism, homosexuality, and transgender issues. For 1970, it is extremely progressive, and the text promotes equality. But nowadays, many parts of it would be considered backwards. Like Huck Finn, the author's intention is clouded with the stereotypes and thinking of the time it was created in. But in the last chapter of the novel, the author herself comes out to address the readers and, I'm paraphrasing here, states that for all her noble intentions one day people will look at this novel and think it is backwards, and she says it is a good thing. Society will continue on, we will (hopefully) grow to better understand and empathize with each other, and her novel (and all other works) will have its place as a microcosm of a more barbaric time.
Walk a mile in my shoes. These books should be a part of the American History, to show the mind sets of people of the time. As well as the more modern story of Black like me
As both an author and a historian, I've always emphasized that you need to be familiar with the era the book was written. I'm glad to see others share similar opinions of the matter. Bravo on an excellent presentation!
I believe that teaching literature especially dated pieces around the history of that time period is imperative to understanding the work. I still remember reading novels of the Vietnam war and our teacher telling us there is swearing because when you get shot at you don't use nice words (because parents complained about that). I also remember our history teacher being annoyed that we couldn't read Uncle Tom's cabin because of the N word, he wanted to teach us about abolition and post civil war America using that book as a tool. Yet I read Huck Finn for a different class and we again discussed the book through the lens of this is what was happening at the time it was written. You can't take books out of their historical context because our modern lens makes it look different and doesn't allow it to have the same impact because you aren't framing it for the intended audience.
When I was in HS in NYC we had what was called the humanities program. The way it worked was our English lit and History classes were linked. When reading Huck Finn we were learning the history period that went with it which meant reading historical contemporaries and well as looking at other artistic mediums of the time. It was a wonderful way to contextualize the art and the greater messages at play, and it also helped to bring history into focus as a time that people actually experienced. I 100% think the two subjects should be taught in tandem
After watching this, I think part of it might be that Huck Finn might be more appropriate for college level courses, as opposed to high-school or younger. The kind of stuff where it can be part of a professor's entire course on literature, where the students are hopefully a bit more mature and the classes are hopefully more diverse, and its context in both literature and history can be explored.
Pfft. Yeah right. Colleges have fired professors without tenure for saying a word that "sounds like the N-word" when it was in fact a word in ANOTHER LANGUAGE... WHICH THEY WERE TEACHING TO THERE STUDENTS.
If anything, teaching it to high schoolers makes way more sense. Especially since high schoolers would actually be exposed to the word and concept behind it more then any dumb college student do to its use in video game voice chats all the time. Which is even more funny because it be used mostly against WHITE PEOPLE because most of America is White. The reason it is funny in high school is because the word isn't used a lot like how the word gay is used all the time in the Narnia books because it meant happy back then. Hearing people say a naughty word is funny in school but teenagers quickly lose interest in it and the ones that don't are actually trying to be hurtful which shows a difference in developing character. Hell, I heard the N-word most from Black kids and rappers growing up and not just the soft A but the hard R.
I legit see kids having a more mature and thoughtful discussion of it then any current college dumbasses given most kids nowadays are raised to be kind to one another. They don't WANT to be actively mean like this. Sure kids can easily be cruel but in different ways. They would find the certain words bad to use but use different words to bully. I didn't want to swear at all as a kid and only started to around when I was 12 and my mom was shocked the first time I called my brothers dumb fuckers. She didn't even slap me with how just out of nowhere it was for me being the quiet kid.
@@RavenCloak13 full of teenagers and 212 N word in the book so cool
I don’t understand this obsession with needing to censor texts because they hurt your sensibility . It’s a great piece of literature and must remain so period regardless of its use of stereotypes. Leave it alone
I think that people should separate art from the artist and judge books based on what they have to offer as a whole. Like, is this work valuable in terms of content or form? Will it enrich me in some way if I read it?
That doesn't mean agreeing with everything the book or its author says or adopting everything as your personal bible and basing your behaviour on it. It's like people can't engage critically with texts anymore, they're either 100% pure or they should be burned. It's a very puritanical view
Censorship is power. You have the right to censor, you have the right to silence people who dare speak against you or disagree with you. Speech, press, worship, and assembly are all things that tyrants must control in order to have power.
Definitely one of the better videos they’ve made recently. Never read anything by Twain, but I definitely understand the importance of placing every work in its proper social context, and I like the idea of incorporating other relevant topics into the experience simultaneously.
I read this book as a young kid and was shocked to find out people treat(ed) each other so horribly. This book was the foundation for my utter disgust for racism, let alone the barbaric and evil practice of slavery. Not long after, the television series, Roots, came out. I was inconsolable during one of the scenes. To me, it was plain how unforgivable slavery is/was. When one can internalize that basic idea, racism and discrimination are easily digestible as facts that need to be changed.
I grew up watching Huck Finn movies and stuff but it wasn’t until I read the book that it became one of my favorite stories.
Huck and Jim’s relationship, Huck’s journey as a character, Huck’s innocent criticisms of religion, etc make it absolutely wonderful.
Historical context is always important when looking at (or reading) any work of art. But, the thing that always gets to me about 'Huckleberry Finn' is when everything and everyone in this child's society is telling him that turning Jim in is nothing less than a matter of his eternal soul - Huck decides 'Alright, then, I'll go to Hell'.
History is there to remind us not to make the same mistakes. I adore Mark Twain's style of writing.
context is and always will be the key, when i think about the english teachers i admired and befriended in middle/high school they took the time to give a full understanding of a subject especially for the kids willing to learn it. it also would help kids bridge what theyre learning in school, by using more contemporary voices/work to interact with what theyre studying. huck finn isnt like birth of a nation bad but still needs to be handled with the same level esp for high schoolers, where if you are gonna get into it you really need to establish the circumstances and context and what is being shown or in huck finns case, read.
Context makes the whole difference. Why do so many have such difficulty understanding this?
Thank you, It's Lit. Good video as always.
Sadly we forgot to teach people to think.
@@sammiebateman8921 Yes, it does not come naturally to some, does it?
A fear I've had with trying to "sanitize" the past, or more specifically, censor-down what we consume from the past (media of all/any forms) is that we narrow down and limit examples of POC being active participants in culture and history. The world use to be very, very (openly) racist and so there's a lot of racism is past works, but is it right to narrow the scope of representation in the name of "cleaning up" the material we present? Song of the South was very controversial in it's day for allowing a black man to play the lead role in a film aimed at children, racists were literally saying that humanizing a black man (and introducing African Folklore) to a young audience was somehow dangerous. Later, as perceptions changed, Song of the South went from being "too liberal" to "too racist" with the argument shifting to the lead character being the "wrong" kind of black character for children to see (notice both arguments share the same goal). The film was created in it's time and exists in a solid state, but based on modern and past opinions it's been framed in very different ways as symbolizing very different things.
Instead of censoring content, I'm a strong advocate of acknowledging racism in it's full ugly context; yeah, maybe Jim isn't the best written-character on planet earth, but he represents a kind of person in a time in a place that did exist at one point and he can be the leaping-off point of a lot of different complex discussions about character portrayal in stories. It also worries me that a lot of people express openly that their radical beliefs are generated out of feeling disconnected form their past and that, in many cases, people expressing this partly feel that way because a lot of media representation has been scrubbed from a "no representation is better then bad representation" perspective. I feel like if we keep going down this route of cleaning up or throwing out things, we're going to end up with people feeling really lost and wanting for a historic frame of reference to be able to put their modern existence into context.
This reminds me of the perspective Warner Brothers took when releasing the incredibly racist cartoons, but presenting them with an introduction to the effect of "Yes, this is awful. It was awful then, and it's awful now. But we did make them, and if we lock them up forever, that's effectively claiming we never did."
Twain used abusive language quite deliberately and was much criticized for doing so. Basically, he was throwing it in people's faces, showing racism is embedded in our speech. The last few chapters let the book down with a thud. He really didn't know how to end it, so he resorted to "burlesque," as that kind of humorous writing was then called.
It is a warning, I think, not to over-romanticize the desire to be a liberator etc. re Tom. Tom was more obviously the voice of Mark Twain in his earlier books; and in a way he seems to be taking himself down for wanting a conventional happy ending for Jim, after all the problems they have encountered are deeply structural and embedded, he can't just finish with a 'and after another bound, they were free' sort of stuff. Huck runs away from his aunt, even after standing up to his abusive father, and is basically still on the way to becoming his father, a semi-criminal drifter. Jim, who is older, appears unable to cope with a second attempt at running away, and isn't mentioned coming with Huck - although he may have decided that travelling with a child was too risky, and he will try again on his own.
I always figured if Twain had written something that everyone felt comfortable with today we simply wouldn’t have it as it never would have been printed or read in his own time.
Twain’s genius was his ability to tell grounded, relatable stories about the kind of people many didn’t give a second thought, and covertly hidden within that narrative were messages that would have been outright rejected before even reading had they been more obvious. His approach would often help the fence-sitters to reconsider their prejudices as they, for instance, find themselves sympathizing with the character with clearly the most integrity and moral fortitude in the book in the form of Jim.
He wrote for his audience at the time, and given his background I’d say Samuel’s disposition was damn near a miracle. That boy from Missouri somehow found his own way through unimaginable racial hate and emerged an enlightened figure.
I remember reading this as a young European girl who knew absolutely nothing about American history or culture and really liking it. I wonder what I would think reading it today, knowing more about racism and what were considered black stereotypes
I read it again as an adult and found it to be a great book. I recommend you give it another go.
The thing I think that makes Huck Finn a great story is that it was the first to fully showcase that racism is a learned behavior. Huck’s journey is to unlearn what he had been taught his entire life to the point he willing says he will go to hell if thats the price to stand up for Jim.
Audio is often a little on the low end. Would it be possible to increase it a bit in later videos?
Reading this book gave me an understanding of the historical context for modern racism. It exists today, but didn't come from nowhere. Huck Finn was an entertaining way to ease people into racial harmony. Reading it should, at the very least, be encouraged. I read it to my son - warts and all - and provided him with explanations of why this was so sad, or that is so offensive. The fact is, the further we get from the history, the more important proper guidance on the subject becomes; which is why it should be a part of the curriculum.
I was in a psych ward in June 2013 for six days. They had a “book corner” there, just a bunch of donated books on shelves, that you could borrow during your stay. I read “Huck Finn” then for a second time after reading it first my junior year in high school.
If Twain was alive, I’d thank him for transporting me to a fascinating place, with compelling characters, for those six days. What a book. I adore every line.
I really appreciate all the nuance in these videos. This may be my favorite so far. Big thank you to Princess and the rest of Storied!
I love Toni Morrison’s insight to this American literature. Reading this book in a predominantly white high school was torture. You always new when the English classes were studying the book based on the racist graffiti on the bathroom walls and classroom desks.
Yikes.
It's a remarkable piece of storytelling. The language, wit, dialogue, scene and setting are reason enough to read Huck Finn. One doesn't need to swallow an author's point of view to appreciate a work. It is an imperfect novel, even by formal literary standards, quite uneven in quality, due in large part from being a serialized story printed chapter by chapter in a magazine. The weaknesses pointed out in this video are weaknesses in art as well as morality, but that doesn't negate the work at its best. And we learn something about the author and his audience--and, by extension, of the America of the era--from what is offensive, too. Definitely worth reading. In high school? Idk... maybe as part of a history unit on Reconstruction that puts its flaws in the context of the time?
I always saw the book as an indictment of a racist society. It’s got every southern stereotype in the book. Twain may not be completely caught up to our standards, but he was far ahead of his time. Someone mentioned this earlier, but I saw Jim’s submissiveness as he went further south as a Jim just trying to survive in the Deep South. I saw Huck as his adopted son.
…but also Tom is miserable.
12:38 Preach. As a history teacher, I couldn’t agree more.
Wow! The attitude of the father towards education sound familiar. It is still here and classism help to keep it alive.
It is a fear of losing his power.
All I can say is that my Mama read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to me as a child before I could read for myself. I suspect she may have done some editing along the way because as far as I can remember, she never used a certain word then or at any other time. Nor would she accept its use in her presence.
I can't speak for others but I've no doubt that the book was a major factor as to why I rejected the Jim Crow society and culture I was born into as I grew up.
I really appreciate it when contact creators approach topics from many angles in order to get a more complete picture.
When I was a child I read the book and saw Jim's words, especially the fearful ones, in the cartoonish fashion that would very much be insulting anyone it was applied to. Then we viewed the movie in class, so old it was in that it was advertised as in color, where the character of Jim was played by a very good actor. Those same words, so cartoonish to my ears, spoken by an actor capable of understanding the intended emotion, situation, and... dialect I suppose, sounded scared, real, legitimate, and heartwrenching. I wasn't capable of understanding how those words could be real because my life and the place I grew up didn't use words like that and rarely saw fear on that scale until I saw that movie.
It really let me drove home how important context and a good example is.
Huck Finn was definitely a baby step, that is baby-stepping the audience away from racism. we are now past that and see that step as stupid even hurtful. like watching parents teach their children it can seem condescending, even when done well, because we aren't children anymore and don't remember what it was like to be that young and need that kind of intervention.
Real quick, Jim's transformation into a "statue" could also be the problem of a person not knowing how the character they created, a character of very different situations would react, and the need to prevent him from starting a new issue too close to the end of the book.
40 seconds in.
Princess says there are things which are nuanced
Which in today's world? itself controversial!
I love the way Weekes always deconstructs things so intelligently yet with great humour.
Great content! There seems to be an audio production issue, though.
Yeah, the background music is a bit too loud.
Thanks for sharing the analysis.
I think you missed the point of the sudden change in Jim's behavior once they reach the plantation. It's not that the author forgot how to write or how to give this character a voice as you seem to imply. It demonstrates the dual nature of life in the south as a black man, especially an enslaved one. For most of the book, Jim could be his true self with Huck. But, when Jim has to deal with plantaion life, he wears his "slave mask" once again to avoid trouble.
Rather than being banned, this book can reflect the struggles of black people today. Start a discussion on how society requires people of color to "act white" in some situations, or appear submissive to authority figures.
By 19th century standards it wouldn't be considered racist but by late 20th century/ 21st century standards, yes it is very racist. Now that's not to give the people of the nineteenth-century a pass because even back then a lot of them knew the things that they were doing when it pertains to race was wrong.
Agreed, Mark Twain was pretty un/Anti-racist considering that he was born in the South well before the civil war.
I think when we consider what mistakes of the past we condemn vs what ones we forgive because it was "of the time" we should be making the distinction more often between active racist actions and unconscious racial biases.
To me it seems clear that Mark Twain was anti-racist in terms of being against slavery and cruelty and purposefully spreading that view in his work, but his unconscious biases are still present in the writing because there were very few white people of the time who were given the tools to address those biases within themselves.
Thank you, for another great video with a lot to think about. I especially appreciated Dr. Thomas' words at the end, and I think pairing _Huckleberry Finn_ with Douglass's _Narrative_ is an excellent idea. I'm thinking of the passage in which Douglass describes the singing of the slaves and how this is misinterpreted by whites, which leads me to something I've long thought about Jim.
I couldn't say if Twain intended this reading (unlikely), but my impression was that Jim sees the character of Huck, Tom and all the other white character's much more clearly than they see his or even each other. There's little hints of this, throughout but especially in the scene just before Huck apologizes to Jim on the raft. But, Jim is required, everywhere, and at all times, to put on an act, to please white people for survival. I think every misadventure along the river attests to this. I might wish the last section made this clearer, but I think Jim sees right through Tom and Tom's game, and I vaguely recall that he even tries to allude to this to Huck (It's been a while, I'll have check) but Huck doesn't really see it, and goes along with Tom's whole shenanigans because he trusts Tom, I guess? (I feel like this is as much a mystery, as any). Anyway, it's another layer to the agonizing dramatic irony of these chapters. I think, Jim stays because he could not possibly trust that the opportunity to get away is real--and, in fact, it isn't. Jim's best bet is to continue playing his part, so he does. It works out in the end, because Twain knew his audience.
Thank you again!
I also got the sense from reading it that Jim was the wiser one of all the characters and that he could see past many of the other characters' bullshit.
Excellent dissection. Thanks for your work!
Your analysis is masterful. Keep them coming! 👍
Thank you! That book was written to underline the evils of slavery, among other things. It should be read, and then thoughtfully discussed. Slavery, alcoholism, child abuse, and economic class distinctions all come into play in this book. I've always noticed the difference in the way Tom reacts to things, as opposed to the way Huck does. New to your channel; you really do your research, love that! Excellent video.
That’s the problem with illiteracy; people that ban books are not generally Readers.
They don’t get that Huckleberry Finn was satirically vicious in its attack on the idiocy of racists, the cruelty of slavery, and the humanity of the slave in contrast with the ignorance, inhumanity, and supposed superiority of those considered to be of a higher caste, from the drunkard to the con men, the criminals and the pathetically retrograde “aristocracy”.
Growing up in the South it was the first Woke thinking I experienced in regards to the systemic stupidity intrinsic in Southern/Rural “culture”.
The language used for each character was an ingenious and accurate approach to dialect which served to breathe life into character individuality and distinguished the works of Twain/Clemens in his art of breathing life into fiction by showing the grainy imperfections, differences, and individual personal perspective.
There may well be a case to be made of not introducing this work to younger students who have not been prepared to read it in the full context of the period or of literature in general. This is probably only arguable due to a failure in Social and Literary Education. One could also argue that this work might serve as the basis for said Education and could easily of itself be a two part course in Humanities Studies.
I'm 60 now but as a teen in racist white America Twain was life changing. Twains savage use of sarcasm and satire enlarged my world. I think I read his War Prayer the first time as a junior in high school. Maybe there's better things for that age group now but I think his humanist, transcendent mindset is timeless.
Why is the audio so low? I'm so thankful you guys have subtitles bc I was about to hunt for headphones just to hear and my volume is all the way up
Thank you for the wonderful commentary. Cheers ! Your friend in reading, Jeff
One of Princess's best videos, hands down. Excellent job. Really glad you guys did this topic!
I just realized that all the required reading about racism I’ve been assigned… has been written by white people. I knew that this was a problem but it wasn’t until the end of this video that I put that together, and - especially since I live in a “progressive,” “well-educated,” “diverse” area - it really puts things into perspective
Personally as a white antiracist person, the point I came to with this great video right here was (especially at the time) that antiracist messaging was made by and for other white people because we were kind of at the crux of the issue. We were the ones doing the bad thing and so we were the ones best poised to stop doing that bad thing. I think a good bit of hand-holding was going on. It was probably easier for white people of the time to feel comfortable absorbing the message if the black character was infantilized or made unthreatening. So it certainly had its uses, I just think we've moved on the issue enough that it's easier to just elevate black voices, black academics, etc. and do some listening.
Of course, we've still got a lot of racist jackasses but I think the time for hand-holding is long past. I'm not interested in treating these people with kid gloves anymore.
@@furiousapplesack True. I love the idea of reading Frederick Douglas first, and then Twain.
Great analysis with great suggestions.
It has become at least somewhat difficult to find intelligent conversations about almost anything these days. Work like this gives me hope that maybe we're not as doomed as I too-often think we are. Thank you for that (and for this content).
Yall gotta work on your sound mixing. The lady is barely audible sometimes and the sound effects and track are a lot louder than her audio.
History should not be erased, but explained in its context, for kids to understand former prejudices and identify the ones we currently have.
Excellent analysis. Thanks for that!
I’ve read it through 3 times in my life. The first time being a 3rd grader in 1973, having heard my school library in Lakeland Florida was looking to ban it. It was one of the wisest choices I ever made. The introduction to the works of Mark Twain, one of the greatest souls to have ever lived in my honest opinion.
I like the Gone Girl reference, as that takes place in Missouri too
As an English major of African descent, I think it's fair for its day. Not enlightened by any means.
Great discussion! Thanks for this!
Your video was so insightful! Thank you
A great book that examines & questions racism at every step until Huck 'damns his soul' to support Jim, in his own words.