Theodore Kim

English 12
Ms. Rochman
1/3/16
You Cant Say N*****!
Ernest Hemingway once said All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark
Twain called Huckleberry Finn, (Censored Books 53). The novel The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn is considered by many people to be one of the greatest pieces of American
literature, yet it has a long history of being challenged or censored by countless school districts,
libraries, and parents. One might ask the question to why The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is
such a target. The simple answer to that question is due to the supposed racist nature of the book.
The allegations of racism are supported by the fact that the novel contains many references to the
word nigger. The book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is often wrongly banned or
censored in contemporary society for the use of a derogatory word.
One contemporary example of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn being challenged is in one
court case Monteiro v. Tempe Union High School District. In Tempe, Arizona a Jane Doe, a
freshman at McClinotck High School was tasked to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
and her mother Kathy Monteiro later complained to the school district. Kathy Monterio said that
the book contains repeated use of the profane, insulting and racially derogatory term nigger,
(Monteiro). It is no surprise that the Office for Intellectual Freedom of American Library
Association said that Huckleberry Finn is at the top of the list of books found to be offensive by
African Americans, (Censored Books 65). The complaints of Kathy Monteiro even go so far to
claim that her daughter and other similarly situated African-American students suffered

psychological injuries and lost educational injuries and lost educational opportunities due to the
required readings of the literary works, (Monteiro). In addition to the book containing offensive
language, the plaintiff even claimed that the introduction of the book created and contributed to
a racially hostile educational environment, (Monteiro). Because the book supposedly placed
Jane Doe in a harmful environment, Mrs. Monteiro claimed the the book violated her daughters
rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, (Monteiro). This claim of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn violating a
persons right was not only used in the Monteiro v. Tempe case, but by other groups such as the
Human Relations Committee of Mark Twain Intermediate School from Fairfax County,Virginia.
The same group that challenged the book, claimed that the book is poison, anti-American,
works against the melting pot theory, and is in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment and the
preamble, (Censored Books 65). However the district court had denied Mrs. Monteiros
complaints and denying the motion for a retrial, since Jane Does complaint did not contain
specific allegations of fact necessary to sustain a claim of discriminatory intent, (Monteiro).
The Monteiro case is not the only example of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn being
challenged due its language. In 1885, the Concord Library of Massachusetts, said to The Boston
Transcript that Huckleberry Finn is suited to the slums then to intelligent respectable people,
(Censored Books 62) because of its use of slang.. There have been numerous reports of parents
and teachers complaining to their school districts to pull The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
from the English curriculum. For example, in Sandy Run Middle School in Upper Dublin School
District, middle school teacher Lou Ann Merkle, a proponent of multicultural awareness wanted
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn be removed from the Districts required reading list
because of its offensive language with respect of African Americans, (Merkle). Due to

Huckleberry Finns use of language, it is understandable that it creates a disruptive and hostile
environment as demonstrated in the Fennell v. Marion Independent School District, when after a
middle school class read the book, some of the students started using the word nigger outside
the context of the book, (Fennell). The controversy surrounding The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn and the racial tension it causes in classrooms around America has even reached a point were
some publishers omitted or even censored the word nigger in news editions of the book. The
publisher Singer has edited the word nigger with the word slave in one of their anthologies.
Another publisher McGraw-Hill replaced nigger with words such as servant, folks, and
hand.
Well despite peoples understandable troubles with the book, since it may seem degrading in
its depiction of Jim the Slave. Is the censorship of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
completely justified? The problem with people challenging books like Huckleberry Finn is that
these challengers try to apply their own morals and principles to a book written by a person from
a vastly different timeline. The cultural ideas and principles of Mark Twains time are extremely
different from that of a person living today. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written in a
time when slavery was the norm. As it was said in Mark Twains autobiography In my school
boy days, I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware that there was anything wrong with it. No
one arraigned it in my hearing; the local papers said nothing against it; the local pulpit taught us
God approved it if the slaves themselves had an aversion to slavery, they were wise and said
nothing,(Twain). Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints makes a reference to a book character
from The Day They Came to Arrest the Book by Matt Hentoff. The character said,
Huckleberry Finn uses that word because the way he up and where he he grew up it was the
natural thing to do, (Hentoff). It would be ignorant to view Huckleberry Finn as an

intentionally racist piece of literature, since racism was not its intention. Twains use of dialect
is important to the authenticity of his characters,(Censored Books 59). The word nigger in
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was used to accurately depict the southern dialect during
the time of slavery. In novel The Day They Came to Arrest the Book by Nat Hentoff, the black
character Steve Turney said In this book, those words- particularly nigger- are not intended by
the author, Mr. Clemens . to insult or humiliate me or and other black persons. They are
intended to rebuke and bring scorn to those ignorant, so-called grown up white people in the
book who uses those words, (Hentoff). The purpose of the book is to satirize slavery in
America.
While Mark Twain uses his novel as an attack on slavery itself, parents from Warringtion,
Bucks County Pennsylvania have argued that students in eight grade were not mature enough to
understand Twains subtle attack on slavery and responded to the word nigger by abusing
black students, (Censorship 66). Pennsylvania State University in 1983, conducted a study that
investigated the psychological effects of reading Huckleberry Finn and its effects on the racial
attitudes of ninth graders. After the study, the committee concluded after the ninth graders read
the book, they have demonstrated both a deeper sensibility to the moral and psychological
issues central to the novel (a number of which deal with issues of race) and a more positive
attitude on matters calling for racial understanding and acceptance, (Censored Books 55).
However, that same committee that produced the results of that study recommended that the
book be moved from ninth grade to eleventh or twelfth grade since many ninth graders
interpreted it as an adventure story and missed the elements of satire critical to understanding the
novel, (Censored Books 55). The problem with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn being
taught in school that the curriculum does not account for the maturity of the students. For

example, in the Monteiro v. Tempe Union High School Dist. case, the plaintiff represented was a
ninth grader. In addition in the Fennel v. Marrion Independent School District and the Merkel v.
Upper Dublin School District cases both plaintiffs were from middle school. Most of the
complaints and controversy surrounding Mark Twain usually involves students from middle
school or freshman year of high school. The problem with racial tensions caused the book is
not inherently because of the book itself but because of the students reading it. This problem that
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be easily addressed by changing school curriculum to
have the book read by students of an appropriate grade level as suggested by that study
conducted by Pennsylvania State University.
One of the greatest pieces of American literature is not even safe from the threat of
censorship. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is probably the most misunderstood novel in
American history. Because of its use of the word nigger, the book has made its self an easy
target for censorship. Due to the language used to accurately depict the dialect of the characters,
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has put itself in many different courts cases. Monteiro v.
Tempe Union High School Dist., Merkle v. Upper Dublin School Dist., and Fennell v. Marion
Independent School District are the many examples of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
being challenged in a court of law. The language used in Huckleberry Finn is considered too
uncomfortable that publishers such as McGraw Hill and Singer have even altered the words of
Huckleberry Finn. While the efforts of these activists have good intentions, it is nothing but
ignorant sensationalism. If the censors took some time to truly understand why Mark Twain
wrote Huckleberry Finn in that particular manner then The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
would not face this much censure.

People have no right to alter the works of another person on the basis that they do not
agree with or offended by the ideas presented by the medium. It is a huge disservice to the reader
to limit their understanding by censoring a piece of art or literature. I do not support the
censorship of anything book or idea, no matter how offensive the idea or concepts it presents,
since censorship is a crime against free thought and speech. To fully appreciate someones work,
do not alter it.

Works Cited
1. Karolides, Nicholas J., Lee Burress, and John M. Keam. Censored Books:
Critical Viewpoints. Vol. 1. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 2001. Print.
2. Fennell v. MARION INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, No. 14-51098
(5th Cir. Oct. 13, 2015).
3. Monteiro v. Tempe Union High School Dist., 158 F.3d 1022 (9th Cir. 1998).
4. Merkle v. Upper Dublin School Dist., 211 F.3d 782 (3d Cir. 2000).
5. Hentoff, Nat. The Day They Came to Arrest the Book; A Novel. New York:
Delacorte, 1982. Print.
6.

Twain, Mark. Autobiography of Mark Twain.Berkeley, Calif.: U of

California, 2010. Print.