Huck Finn Essay For English

Huck Finn: Serious Issues in Humor The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a best seller here in the United States. It has been read by the young and old and is even in the high school curriculum. Such a great book can’t have bad messages in it right? Or can it? This book has been under fire ever since Mark
Twain wrote it and published it in 1884. It was a sequel to his previous best seller The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer. People adored his previous book and was hungry for more.
People were pretty much begging to have more fun adventures with Tom Sawyer in his book so they were initially excited for this new book to arrive. However, after finishing the book, it was put under much controversy about slavery, alcoholism, and child abuse. So much so, that concerned adults and children today want to ban the book from libraries and schools. It should not be banned for touching upon grave issues in a humorous manner that readers today might consider extremely offensive to their race or religion. People see horrific stories of all types in the news today. Everything from murders to petty theft is said in the news. One of the most horrific news stories is when there is children involved in any criminal activity whether it be murder or theft. A recent study has shown that about 1 in 4 people grew up with substance abuse and twothirds had grown up with what they call an ACE or adverse childhood experience or child abuse in short terms.
In the book, Huck’s father who is called Pap is the town drunkard. Pap wanders around the town, leaving Huck alone for days at a time. Pap often beats Huck as well. Huck does mention that he somewhat deserves some but not all. Pap is in no ways a stable parent towards Huck. Making Huck depend on himself and even one time attacking Huck with a knife until he fell asleep from the drunkenness. Pap forces Huck to quit school, kidnapped him, and

forced him to live in a small cabin in the woods by the Mississippi River. Pap once again abandons Huck for days at a time while Huck fakes his own death and runs away on the
Mississippi River. With so many things happening to Huck, what technically counts as child abuse or rather child neglect. As defined from childhelp.org, “Child abuse is when a parent or caregiver, whether through action or failing to act, causes injury, death, emotional harm or risk of serious harm to a child. There are many forms of child maltreatment, including neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation, and emotional abuse.”. Huck definitely falls into the category of being a victim of child abuse.
Pap is a highly negligent parent and it can be seen the controversy that people can be concerned about. This is however, the realism of the real world. Events like this happen every single day in the real world that we live in. Lots of parents can’t handle realism and that sets them over the edge with this book especially with the lack of education that Pap forces upon
Huck. However, adding this extra information in the story about Huck being abused, shows justification for some of Huck’s actions due to him being raised with a deformed conscience by Pap’s method of raising Huck. As said by John Grant, “What I discovered (in Huckleberry
Finn) was some very moving sections that satirize American racism through the eyes of a parentally abused 14yearold.”. Slavery is a big part of the book too as Huck meets Jim, a runaway slave from the widow (Miss Watson), that tried to civilize Huck but Huck ran away. Huck has a constant internal conflict about helping Jim escape. Jim however is the only in most pain and torment from all the plans that involve him(Tom’s elaborate escape plan, Huck playing a trick on him,
Duke and Dauphin selling him to get money). Huck grew up thinking helping a black man escape was wrong and is an act that should be punished for. Huck was about to turn Jim in to

Miss Watson but he does a doubletake on the situation. He

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