8/9/2019 February 18, 1885

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Tlu» Na tion.

August

  31,

 1

OOKS & T H E AliTS.

uck at 100

ver since it was published, ex-

actly one hundred years ago,

Mark Twain's

  Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn  has been a

coarse, irreverent, semi-

vicious. The library

ection of a large audience, and dur-

m the mincingly refined s tandards of

genteel tra dit ion . In the 1930s

 H uckleberry

 as the work from which all modern

yle as nothing less than a

discovery in the English langua ge.

  Th e Scarlet

 and some other class ic Ameri-

But then, having survived the disdain

  racially offensive,

since then we have seen a mounting

ks as nig ger s. Huck's repeated

of that demeaning epithet is enough

  stereotypical

 Marx is th author o/The Machine

  Oj^ord) and

minstrel-show darkie.) In the last few

years the protest has been gaining

adherents. In a number of cities across

the country, indignant parents, educa-

tors and school board members have

demanded that the book be removed

from ihe curriculum and even, in some

instances, that it be banned from school

or public libraries. This past year a

group of black parents succeeded in

having the novel taken off the list of re-

quired reading in Waukegan, Illinois,

and John H. Wallace, an educator with

the school board in Chicago, is now

conducting a nationwide campaign

against Mark Twain's greatest work,

which he calls the most grotesque ex-

ample of racist trash ever written.

One result of this protest is that the

centenary of

 Huckleberry inn

 has been

marked by a curious conjunction of cel-

ebration and denunciation. In March,

when Shelley Fisher Fishkin, a literary

scholar at Yale University, came to

Mark Twain's defense, she attracted

national attention to the dispute about

his racial views. In an announcement

treated as front-page news by

  The New

York Times,  she reported the authen-

tication of an 1885 letter in which Twain

offered to provide financial support for

a black student at Yale Law School.

There he wrote that we have ground

the manhood out o f . . . [black men] &

the shame is ours, not theirs; and we

should pay for it . (He subsequently

did provide the money.) Because the

letter reveals the personal anguish that

Twain felt regarding the destructive

legacy of slavery. Fishkin evidently

thought thai it might help to overcome

the objections of black people to

Huckleberry Finn. The implication was

that a man of such enlightened views

could not possibly have written a racial-

ly offensive novel and that once those

views were established, the controversy

would be resolved.

But as it turned out. the Yale letter

merely provoked the contending parties

to recast their arguments in less com-

promising, more strident language.

Thus Sterling Stuckey, a historian at

Northwestern University who is black,

was moved to reaffirm the received

scholarly-critical estimate of Mark

Twain's masterwork. Of the letter he

categorical indictment of racism

American life, and he went on to p

Huckleberry Finn as one of the m

devastating attacks on racism ever w

te n. But Wallace, perhaps the nov

most outspoken critic, was unmoved

Fishkin's announcement. When as

to comment on the new evidence

Mark Twain's sympathy for blacks

said that it still does not miti

the problems that children have

Huck Finn. . . .  The book teaches

tant racism. . . . We ought to get i

the school reading list.

What shall we make of this unu

controversy? Unlike most issues

public policy involving opposed lite

judgments, the current argument a

the place of  Huckleberry Finn  in

public school curriculum does no

volve censorship or First Amendm

rights. Whether or not high-school

dents are required to read a partic

novel has nothing to do with anyo

freedom of speech. (I am putting a

the very different and , to my mind

tolerable proposal to remove the b

from school or public libraries.)

other striking feature of the dispu

the extremity of the antagonists' vi

Most public quarrels about the mer

literary works turn on relatively s

questions of interpretation, but in

case an enormous gulf separates t

who consider  Huckleberry Finn 

 one of the most devastating attack

racism ever wri tten from those

denounce it as racist tra sh —

claim that it actually tea ch es bl

racism. At first sight, indeed, the

parties seem to be so far apart a

make the controversy irresolvable,

perha[)s it is. But it may be useful,

step toward a resolution, to con

why this novel lends itself to such

thetical readings. How is it possibl

Huckleberry Finn  to convey such

metrically opposed attitudes to

American racism?

The explanation should begi

think, with a decisive though per

insufficiently appreciated fact: th

cial attitudes to which this novel

overt expression are not Mark Tw

they are those of an ignorant adole

boy. This fact also explains, inc

tally, why evidence from other so

about what the writer, Samuel L. C

ens,

  may have thought or said o

subject of race (as in the Yale l

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  31. 1985

The Nation.

 

  a  considerab le disparity often

 and

 is an axiom of

  In the

 case

 of a

  first-

 Huckleberry Finn,

ens's viewpoint  is mani-

  and can  only make  it-

  in the

  voice

  of—

  the

  mask of—the

 boy nar-

n accounting

  for the

  ability

  of

  to

  arrive

  at

  radically opposed

  the  racial attitudes

  in  this novel,  the  importance

the

  first-person narrative method

  be

  exaggerated. Every w ord.

  ema-

  or, in  passages where

  is  reported  by

  his

  mind .  Ad-

  of  Huckleberry Finn  is a  tour

  of  sustained impersonation.  It

  tale told

 by a boy who is a

  vagrant

d

  a

  virtual outcast,

  who has no

 (she is  never mentioned), whose

  is an  illiterate drunk, bigot  and

  and who is  inclined  to  accept

  of

  people like himself

  in his own  words, i r reme-

  and  low-down  and

Of course Huck calls black people

  for him to

  refer

  to

  them

  way would  be  inconceivable.

t to say  this can be misleading if it is

  to

  imply that

  the

 difficulty comes

  to a

  mere question

  of

  usage,

 as if

  his

  (and  himself)  of the charge of

  by

  cleaning

  up

  Huck ' s

  The

  truth

  is

  that

  is  written from  the

  of a  racist,  or. to be  more

  a  semiracist—a racist with  a

  The

  difference stems

  in

  part

  (or, as  Mark Twain puts  it, his

  and in  pjart from  his

 on the

 fringe

 of

  and his  oth er friends

  to the  qua l i ty ,

  has

  been spared much

 of the for-

  of  family, church and

  His  racial prejudice  is not sup-

  by a  sense  of  family  or  social

  On the

  contrary ,

  he is a

 a boy who is  only half

or. in  social science idiom,

  has  been incompletely a ccu lturate d.

 he has

  picked

 up the

  received

 of

 white racism along with other

  and  pieces  of the  dom inan t belief

  has  been less

COUJECTOKs

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8/9/2019 February 18, 1885

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2

Th e Nation.

August  31, 1

  in him

  than

  in re-

 Tom

 Sawyer.

In moments  of  crisis, accordingly,

 up

 against the discrepancy

  the

  standard conception

  of

  as  niggers —a concep-

 he shares—and what he has learned

 a

 result

 of his

 direct experience with

 his

 inner strug-

 an un-

  of the cul-

  but  then, when

 to

  enact them,

 he

 balks

 and, in

  he  inadvertently reveals

 for example, it

 to him that his journey

  an

  escaped slave will determine

 his first reaction is wholly conven-

  It  would  get all  around that

  a

  nigger

  to get his

  and if I was ever to see any-

 I'd

 be ready

  get  down  and  lick  his  boots  for

 he

 is supposed

  do if he  wants  the  respect  of law-

  but the  thought  of

 Jim in calls up  vivid memories

 and

 friendship,

  and he

  he  can't  do it; he

 to hell. The conflict be-

 and his

  the

 the  controlling irony works: when

 is behaving ignobly, we are

  to

 recognize

 his

  innate nobility.

makes the outcome

 so

 powerful

 is

the novel's readers are compelled to

  the  ironic reversal. That Huck

  the

  moral code

 of a

  racist

 is an  implication that the boy is

 or put into words. It is a

  for

  themselves.

But  of  course  the  centrality  of  that

  why  some readers

  Huckleberry Finn

  a

  racist

  For  whatever reason,  and one

  the

  if  erratic racism for the

  It

  be

  difficult, admittedly,

  for ad-

 of this wonderful book to believe

  an  average, reasonably competent

  to

  recognize that

  its

  is directed against slavery

  but it  does happen.

  the  incontrovertible

  do

  the

 point,

  it

  must

  be

  emphasized

  and  those  who share his

 are not  chiefly concerned about

the novel's effect

  on

 mature, competent

readers. They  are  concerned about  its

effect  on  schoolchildren,  all  school-

children, but especially black Am erican

children, whose special experience

might very well hinder their respion-

siveness to the ironic treatment of racial

oppression. How much do we know, ac-

tually, about

  the

 ability

 of

  teachers,

 or

of children

  of

  various ages

 and

  social

backgrounds,  to  make sense  of  ironic

discourse?  I have taught this book with

pleasure

  to

  hundreds

  of

  college

  stu-

dents,

 but I'm

 not

 at

 all confident about

my ability  to persuade a class of  inner-

city adolescents—or any literal-minded

adolescents,

  for

  that matter—that

  a

book

 can say, or

 seem

 to

 say,

 one

 thing

and mean another;  or  that  in this case

we should  not be troubled by the  fact

that

  the

  hero calls black people

  nig-

gers

because, after

  all.

  that's what

 all

white Southerners called them back

then, and anyway, look, in the end he is

loyal

  to Jim.

And besides, what does one say about

Jim? There can be no doubt that Mark

Twain wants us to admire him; he is a

sympathetic, loving, self-abnegating.

even saintly, Ch rist-lik e

man. But

what does one tell black children about

his extreme passivity,  his  childlike

credulity,

  his

 cloying deference toward

the white boy? Aren't these the traits

 of

a derisory racial stereotype, the fawning

black male?

 To

 overcome objections

 on

that score,  one  would have  to  stress

Jim's cunning and his occasional refusal

to play  the  minstrel darkie, especially

the great episode in which he drops his

habitual pose of  docility, if it is a pose,

and angrily denounces Huck

  for mak-

ing him the victim  of a cruel joke.  It

was fifteen mi nute s, Huck says about

his reluctant apology, befo re 1 could

work myself

  up to go and

 humble

 my-

self  to a  nigger—but 1 done it, and I

warn't ever sorry  for it  afterwards,

neither.

It

 is

 a

 splendid m oment,

 but is

it splendid enough

 to

 offset

  the

  inescap-

able doubts  of  black readers about

Jim's customary pliancy?  Is it  enough

that  Jim, the  only black male of any

significance

  in the

  novel, asserts

  his

dignity in this one moving episode?

To raise these complex issues, it need

hardly

  be

  said,

  is not to

  condone

  the

denunciation  of the  novel  as  racist

trash.  But  even  if  that opinion  is as

wrongheaded  as I  believe  it to be. it

does

 not

  follow that those

 who

 hold

 it

are necessarily wrong about  the  inap-

propriateness  of  requiring high-school

teachers to teach, and students to r

the

  Adventures

  of

  Huckkberry F

The point

 at

 issue, then,

 is

 the justi

tion for that requirement. To claim

it should  be required reading becau

is

 a

  great American book

  is

 unconv

ing:

  we

 don 't require students

  to

 

most great books. Objections to th

quirement become more u nderstand

if we recognize

 the

 unique characte

the niche Twain's novel tends

 to

 occ

in  the  high-school English course

often  is the  only book that  is cent

concerned with racial oppression.

All of  which suggests that educa

could take  a  large step toward re

ing  the  current controversy simply

eliminating the requirement. This wo

optx\  the way for the  ideal solu

allow each teacher to decide whethe

or her students should be asked to 

Huckkberry Finn.  It is the

  teach

after a ll, who are best qualified

  to

 m

a sensible  and  informed decision, 

that would rest  on  their confidenc

their

  own

 ability

  to

  convey,

  and

 

students' ability to grasp, the irony

informs every word  of  this matc

cotnic novel. 

A H T.

ARTHUR C. DANTO

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

w

e erect monuments

that  we  shall alw

remember,  and  b

memorials  so  that 

shall never forget. Thus

  we

  have

 

Washington Monument but the Lin

Memorial. Monuments commemo

the memorable and embody  the m

of beginnings. Memorials ritualize

membrance  and  mark  the  reality

ends. The Washington Monument, 

tical,  is a  celebration, like firewo

The Lincoln M emorial, even

 if

 on

 a

 

presses down  and is a  meditation

stone. Very  few  nations erect m

ments to their defeats, but many se

memorials

 to the

  defeated dead. M

ments make heroes and  triumphs, 

tories  and  conquests, perpetually p

ent and part  of  life. The memorial 

special precinct, extruded from lif

segregated enclave where we honor

dead. With monuments  we  ho

ourselves.

Mem orials are often just lists of t

killed. Herodotus describes

  a

  meg

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