preview

Censorship In Huckleberry Finn Essay

Decent Essays
Open Document

To Censor or Not to Censor Censorship has existed for hundreds of years and still persists within our modern world. From the burning of books at the hands of crusaders in 1109 to the banning of books in recent years, censorship has shared a long history with books. Nowadays, books are simply banned or removed from libraries. However, in the case of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the book is being censored by removing specific words from it and replacing them with a “non-offensive” word. In censoring the n-word, will the overall message of the story change or be reduced? The change in words, while not being seen as a major change to the overall story and message, has a profound impact on the nature of the book and creates a new novel that …show more content…

Libraries will be denying people the opportunity to learn about racism and how abusive it is, which may result in less and less people knowing about such issues that may still persist in modern society. Schools will essentially be doing the same, but the consequences will be more direct and widespread as schools are the primary center for education. Removing Huckleberry Finn would be a disservice to the history of the United States and the progress that has been made over centuries of reform and social action. The negative aspects of history can not be avoided merely because they do not stay in line with modern social norms and morals. If people obediently accepted the removal of everything that would be considered offensive without first checking the values that can be learned from them, people will stop caring about history and the people that died to create change. People will be just like Huck Finn, when he found out Moses was dead for a long time. People in the real world no longer “take stock in dead people” as well (pg 2 Book). While not the best choice, if it comes to it, having the n-word changed to slave may be better than getting rid of the entire

Get Access