Huck Finn Criticism

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In a modern world which yearns for inoffensive and innocuous material, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, had the potential to be an impactful, controversial work of literature. Huck Finn could have started conversations on the topic of race which lasted through the ages, but tragically, Mark Twain ‘dropped the ball’, instead producing a work overshadowed by disputatious racial slurs and an ineffective ending. Huck Finn may have started out as a journey of moral development, but it devolved into Twain ‘grasping at straws’ in order to create a piece that floundered around the topic of racism rather than the impactful literary work which he had strived for. While this may have sufficed for the people of Twain’s time, Huck Finn…show more content…
However, as the book began to ‘write itself’, Twain acquired a greater purpose for Huck Finn. Huckleberry would become a role model to the white people of Twain’s time, or so Twain aspired. Unfortunately, Mark Twain was not up to the task. He struggled to write The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; it took Twain seven long years to complete the novel. After his first initial period or writing Twain admitted to William Dean Howell, “I like it only tolerably well, as far as I have got, and may possibly pigeonhole or burn the MS when it is done” (Gussow). Regardless of his reservations, Twain persisted until he believed that Huck Finn was complete. He wrote a piece that he believed would adequately create a conversation about the racism in America occuring in his time. Twain knew that racism was prevalent during the years it took him to write Huck Finn. The nineteenth century was still hostile to African Americans: Jim Crow laws had emerged, the Civil Rights Act had been declared unconstitutional, and the United States entered the beginnings of segregation. African Americans certainly had many obstacles. However, did Huck Finn truly do enough to improve of even address their
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