Vocabulary - Huck Finn

Raspy: Harsh, irritable


Haggle: To bargain, to argue


Rummage: to examine, to disturbe.

Huck Finn - "A Scholar Finds Huck Finn's Voice in Twain's Writing About a Black Youth"

Anthony DePalma wrote an article, A Scholar Finds Huck Finn's Voice in Twain's Writing About a Black Youth arguing that probably Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn inspired on  a ten year old black servant he met before writting the book. Probably that is true because Huck could be related to a black servant back in the racist era by his lifestyle.

Eventhough Huck was living with Ms. Watson and the Widow he was "away from his family" and some slaves were away from their families. At the begining of the book I can relate Huck with a slave. It can be interpreted in the scene that his dad takes him to the small house they had and locks him in and it was hard for him to escape. Slaves were not able to escape from their owners and it was hard for them to escape. He also took Huck`s money "His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money" (Twain 31), slaves did not earn money and Huck had money but his dad took it all away.

Jim was the runaway slave that escaped with Huck. However Huck could be considered as a slave because he also was a runaway and wanted freedom from Mrs. Watson and the Widow. Acording to DePalma I actually can see a relation between Huck and a slave, the only difference is the skin color.

Huck Finn - "New Huckleberry Finn edition censors 'n-word'"

The United States has had many issues with racism. Racism is an inapropiate discrimination towards people of different color, culture, ect. The issues with racism have impacted a lot society and today it has grave consecuences. An article called "New Huckleberry Finn edition censors 'n-word'" talks about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and how some context was changed due to the racist words that were used to write the book. The "n-word" is often used in this novel and some adressments were made. Therefore, it would not be racist towards the black society.

Twain citicized the American racism and probably that is why he used such languaje. The idea of changing the cotext of the book is probably not good because it will not affect the readers as much as it would affect them with the original vocabulary. However Dr. Sara Churchwell said: "Twain's books are not just literary documents but historical documents, and that word is totemic because it encodes all of the violence of slavery. The point of the book is that Huckleberry Finn starts out racist in a racist society, and stops being racist and leaves that society. These changes mean the book ceases to show the moral development of his character". She makes a clear point of the message that Twain wants to give to the reader and I think that the adjustments made to the book were apropiate. Evethough the lecture impacted many readers for the vocabulary used, it stated a clear message and it showed people how the can change eventhough they are in a racisct society. For example in the novel when Huck decides to help Jim, a runaway slave.

However the way to impact society somethimes has to be hard "The whole point of literature is to expose us to different ideas and different eras, and they won't always be nice and benign. It's dumbing down.". The way Dr. Churchwell expresses her thoughts might be true because not always people learn with "kind" things.