African-Americans and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn

African-Americans and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn

In the century since the publication of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, it has remained one of the most talked about books in American literature. This distinction seems to be due primarily to the fact that, while the book has always been popular among Americans, Americans, of all types, continue to find different ways to be offended by it. It has been described as everything from anti-southern to anti-black, and has been called everything from a piece of trash to a national treasure. Perhaps no other American book could claim such an abundance of conflicting interpretations.

This essay will seek to explore and explain the history of one of the major controversies surrounding the book, and the importance that that history may have had for modern readings of the novel.

Two Different Novels to Two Different Groups of Americans

As long as Huck Finn has existed, African-Americans have had a unique perspective on the novel. This project will argue that this unique perspective has its roots in the early interpretation of the novel by African-Americans, and that this perspective deserves recognition for finding deeper meaning in Huck Finn, long before it was accepted to do so. To begin, it is important to first distinguish between white interpretation of the novel and black interpretation of it.

Although Huckleberry Finn was published long after the Civil War, racial prejudice and injustice still remained in all aspects of American life. As a result, African-Americans were largely excluded from American literary institutions like universities and publishing companies. Popular newspapers, magazines, and books were, for the mos...

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...ymond W. Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers. Vol. 10: 1909-1911. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981. p349-50.

San Francisco Daily Examiner [unsigned] 1885: March 9.

Smith, David Lionel. “Black Critics and Mark Twain.” The Cambridge Companion to Mark Twain. Forrest G. Robinson, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. p119-20.

Notes:

[i] One of the newspaper accounts of this scandal can be found in The Critical Response to Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. ed. Laurie Champion (New York, Greenwood Press: 1991) 10-12.

[ii] A similarly detailed account of the banning can also be found at http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/huckfinn/hfconcrd.html

[iii] A database of the early illustrations of the character Jim, as well as the other characters of the book, is available at http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/huckfinn/jminpix.html