The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
By: Mark Twain
Olesya Indeikina December 2017 English 9 Honors Period 5

Freytag

• Huck lives at Widow's House
• Huck tries to help Jim escape
• Huck tears up the letter to Miss Watson
• Huck and Tom get caught
• Huck runs away from civilization

Mark Twain's Background

• Grew up in Missouri
• Knows a lot about slavery
• Huck's opinion on Jim - major theme in novel
• Slavery = racism = ban

Reasons For the ban

• Racial issues- promoting racism to one or more groups
• Age Inappropriate - viewed as not suitable for the age group it was aimed at
• Encouragement of damaging lifestyles - promoting drinking, smoking, rebellion etc.

Direct Quotes from The novel

• "No'm. Killed a ------." " Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.(Twain, 258)
• I see it warn't no use wasting words- you can't learn a ---- to argue.So I quit. (Twain, 93)
• "I wouldn't shake my ----, would I? - the only ----- I had in the world, and the only property." (Twain, 252)

History of the Ban

• End of March 1885 - first ban
• Twain's lifetime - low morality
• 1950's - Today, Racism/offensive language
• Commonly banned, 2007 most bans
• Last Challenge - November 2016

Court Cases

• 1954- Supreme Court chose to ban it
• 1998 - parent sues school
• Books with similar reasons for ban
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

My Opinion

• Should not be banned
• Historically accurate about Pre-Civil War American South
• Racial Slurs - illustrate Southern life in 1840's
• History book - one thing; a good novel is another

Works Cited

• Butler University Libraries. “Reasons for Banning Books”. Butler University Libraries. http://libguides.butler.edu/bannedbooks. 15 September, 2017. online
• Foerstel, Herbert. The Most Frequently Banned Books in the 1990’s.1992. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/most-banned.html. Online

Works Cited continued

• Harris, Peyton, "Huck Finn and the Tragedy of Being Banned" (2016). English Class Publications. Paper 31. http://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/english_class_publications/31
• The Online Books Page. Banned Books Online.2017. The Online Books Page.http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html. Online

Works Cited continued

• Profesor Sanburn. The Critic: A literary Weekly, Critical and Eclectic. May 30, 1885. Archive.
• San Francisco Chronicle. March 29 1885. Archive.
• Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.1885. Charles L. Webster and Company. New York, NY. Print.