[고전 이야기] 허클베리 핀의 모험(Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) - 떠돌이 허클베리와 흑인 노예 짐의 모험

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[고전 이야기] 허클베리 핀의 모험(Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

떠돌이 허클베리와 흑인 노예 짐의 모험… 남북전쟁 전후 美 사회의 부조리 담아

허클베리 핀의 모험(Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

작가 : 마크 트웨인

- a novel by American author Mark Twain

장동석 출판도시문화재단 사무처장 입력 2024.01.23. 03:00 조선일보

“검둥이한테 가서 내 머리를 숙이고 사과하기로 결심하기까지는 15분이나 걸렸습니다. 그러나 마침내 나는 이 일을 해내고 말았지요. 나중에 가서도 그에게 사과한 것을 후회한 적이 없습니다.”

“미국 현대문학의 아버지”라고 하는 마크 트웨인(1835~1910)이 1884년 출간한 ‘허클베리 핀의 모험’은 “미국의 모든 현대문학은 이 작품에서 비롯했다”고 극찬을 받는 작품이에요. 19세기 말 남북전쟁 전후 미국 사회에 만연한 모순과 허위를 10대 소년 눈으로 가감 없이 풀어냈기 때문이에요. 미국·일본 등 여러 나라에서 영화, TV 드라마, 애니메이션, 만화 등으로도 제작되며 세계적으로 사랑받고 있어요.

얼마 전 소개한 작품 ‘톰 소여의 모험’의 결말이 ‘허클베리 핀의 모험’의 시작으로 이어져요. 주인공 허클베리(헉)는 강에 떠다니는 증기선을 바라보면서 늘 모험을 꿈꾸고 있었어요. 결국 알코올중독자 아버지가 가둬둔 외딴 오두막에서 가까스로 탈출해요. 헉은 우연히 만난 흑인 노예 소년 짐과 뗏목을 타고 모험을 시작해요. 짐은 이웃 집 왓슨 아줌마네 농장에서 도망 나온 거였어요. 현상금이 무려 200달러나 걸려 있어서 헉의 마음이 잠시 흔들렸지만, 친절하고 순수한 짐에게 반해 모험을 함께하기로 결심해요.

강을 따라 내려가던 헉과 짐은 왕족의 후예이자 비운의 귀족이라고 자처하는 두 사기꾼을 뗏목에 태워요. 그들의 사기 행각을 알아채고 쫓아오던 사람들이 뗏목을 발견하는데, 애꿎게도 짐은 도망친 노예라는 사실이 알려지면서 먼 목화 농장으로 팔려가요. 헉은 짐을 찾아 농장을 찾아가죠. 마침 근처 이모 집에 와 있던 ‘톰 소여의 모험’의 톰과 만나 함께 짐을 탈출시키기 위해 노력해요. 개구쟁이 톰은 책에서 본 감옥 탈출을 재현한다면서 숟가락으로 땅을 파는 등 온갖 엉뚱한 일을 벌이기도 해요.

헉과 톰은 짐을 탈출시켜 함께 도망가요. 하지만 톰은 뒤쫓던 사람들이 쏜 총에 맞아 허벅지를 다쳐 넘어져요. 짐은 혼자서 충분히 도망갈 수도 있었지만, 톰을 치료하는 의사를 정성껏 돕다가 끝내 잡히고 말아요. 사람들은 도망친 노예를 죽이려고 하지만, 의사가 짐의 선행을 증언하면서 죽음을 가까스로 면해요. 때마침 톰의 이모가 짐을 노예에서 해방해 줬다는 왓슨 아줌마의 유언을 전해줘요. 헉과 톰은 모험을 거치며 짐을 구해낸 것이지요.

‘허클베리 핀의 모험’은 떠돌이 소년 허클베리 핀과 흑인 노예 짐, 그리고 톰의 우정을 통해 소외된 사람들에 대한 관심을 불러일으키는 작품이에요. 또한 백인들의 인종차별과 허위의식을 강하게 비판하는 사회 고발 소설이기도 해요.

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허클베리 핀의 모험(Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

1. 개요

마크 트웨인의 작품으로 톰 소여의 모험의 스핀오프 후속작이다. 주인공 허크가 흑인노예 짐과 함께 미시시피 강을 뗏목을 타고 내려가면서 만나는 여러 마을들에서 기상천외한 사건들을 겪는 내용이다.

2. 줄거리

이 문서에 스포일러가 포함되어 있습니다.
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이 문서가 설명하는 작품이나 인물 등에 대한 줄거리, 결말, 반전 요소 등을 직·간접적으로 포함하고 있습니다.

톰 소여의 모험 이후, 술 주정뱅이의 아들 허클베리 핀은 더글러스 부인의 양자가 된다. 그녀와 그녀의 동생 왓슨 부인에게서 예절을 익히고 학교에 나가 글을 배우는 등 교양 있는 생활을 하며 염증을 느끼지만 얼마간 익숙해져 그럭저럭 생활하고 있었다.

그러던 어느 날, 허클베리의 아버지가 마을에 돌아와 허클베리가 떼돈을 벌었다는 것을 알게 되고, 허클베리의 양육이 자신의 몫이라 주장한다. 물론 그 이유는 허클베리 앞으로 되어 있는 막대한 재산을 차지하기 위해서이다.[1] 그렇게 그는 대처 판사와 과부댁과 다투며 허클베리에게서 돈을 뜯어 술을 마셔대다 종국엔 허클베리를 유괴한다. 아버지에게 끌려와 강변의 통나무집에 갇혀 살게 되었지만, 허클베리는 다시 자유로운 숲 속 생활로 돌아와 나름대로 만족한다.

하지만 계속되는 아버지의 폭력에 위협을 느끼고[2], 그가 집에 돌아오지 않는 날이 잦자 탈출을 결심한다. 집 벽 사이에 끼였던 자루 빠진 톱으로 벽을 썰어 구멍을 만들어 탈출한 뒤 마침 근처에 있던 돼지를 죽이고 도끼로 문을 부숴 집 안을 피바다으로 만들어 마치 어떤 침입자가 자신을 살해한 것처럼 꾸민 뒤 집을 탈탈 털어 카누를 훔쳐 미시시피 강 가운데 있는 잭슨 섬에 숨어 살게 된다. 사람들이 자신을 찾느라 대포를 쏘는 와중에[3] 우연히 왓슨의 흑인 노예 짐을 만난다. 알고 보니, 왓슨이 자신을 다른 곳에 팔아넘긴다는 말을 듣고 기겁한 채 도망치다 허클베리가 숨은 곳에 똑같이 숨게 된 것. 이때 짐은 허크가 죽은 줄 알았기에 허크를 보고 기겁한다. 둘은 홍수로 떠내려 온 뗏목을 타고 함께 미시시피 강을 따라 자유를 찾아 떠난다.

두 사람은 뗏목을 타고 여행하면서 여러 마을에 들러 여러 일을 겪는다. 그 와중에 자신들을 공작과 프랑스 왕(루이 17세)이라고 주장하는 두 사기꾼을 만나는데, 그 사기꾼들이 짐을 팔아버린다.[4][5] 허클베리는 짐을 찾아 아칸소 주 어느 마을에 도착한다. 그 곳에서 마침 친척 집에 온 톰 소여와 함께[6] 헛간에 갇힌[7] 짐을 탈출시키기 위한 계획을 짠다. 그런데 모험광인 톰은 책에서 본 것과 똑같은 감옥 탈출을 연출한답시고 쉬운 길을 두고 거창한 계획을 꾸민다. 쥐, 뱀, 거미를 잡아 더러운 감옥을 재현하질 않나, '담요로 만든 탈출용 밧줄'을 위해 멀쩡한 침대보를 훔쳐 찢은 뒤 '파이에 숨겨 죄수에게 가지고 들어간다'는 소설 설정에 매혹되어 애꿎은 밀가루만 날리질 않나, 문맹인 짐에게 억지로 글을 쓰게 하고, (소설에 나온 대로) 피로 벽에 그림을 그리질 않나, 톱으로 벽의 판자 몇 개만 자르면 바로 나갈 수 있는 헛간을 숟가락으로 땅을 파게 만들고,[8] 결정적으로 범죄 예고문을 모방해 집 앞에 "큰일이 벌어질 것이다."란 내용의 익명 편지를 써서 무장한 마을 사람들을 모이게 만드는 등 일을 크게 만들었다. 짐이 '감옥 생활이 이런 거라면 월급을 받아도 못 해먹겠다'고 할 지경.

계획은 어찌어찌 성공적으로 진행되나, 마지막에 짐과 도망치는 과정에서 톰이 허벅지에 총을 맞아 중상을 입게 되고, 허클베리가 의사를 찾아가 톰을 치료하는 과정에서 그를 돕던 짐은 다시 잡히게 된다. 사람들이 분노에 빠져 짐을 죽이려는 찰나, 톰의 총상을 치료하기 위해 허클베리가 방문한 의사가 '짐이 톰을 버리고 도망갈 수도 있었으나 끝까지 곁에 남아있었다.'고 증언해줘 이를 높이 산 사람들의 화가 풀려 일단 죽음은 면한다. 그때 나타난 폴리 아줌마를 통해 왓슨이 유언으로 짐을 해방시켜주었다는 소식을 듣는다.[9] 상처가 나은 톰은 자신들을 위해 죄수 역할을 해준 짐에게 40달러를 주고, 마을 사람들도 짐에게 온갖 대접을 해준다. 그리고 허클베리에게 언젠가 한번 짐과 셋이서 탈출해 인디언들과 함께 모험을 한바탕 해볼 생각이 없는지 물어본다. 그 말이 마음에 든 허클베리는 다시 톰의 친척집에서 양자로 삼겠다는 말을 들은 이후 톰과 함께 인디언들이 사는 지방(오클라호마)으로 모험을 떠날 예정이었지만 샐리 이모와 짐의 이야기를 듣고 생각이 바뀌어 톰과 이별한 후 미개척지인 미국 서부 지역으로 모험을 떠나는 것으로 이야기가 끝난다.

3. 등장인물

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마크 트웨인이 경고문에서 말한 바와 같이 이 이야기는 동기나 교훈, 전개가 뚜렷하게 드러나지 않는다. 초반의 짐과 뗏목을 타고 강으로 탈출하는 부분과 후반의 짐을 구출하는 부분을 제외하면 허클베리 핀과 짐이 미시시피 강을 타고 다니며 겪는 에피소드들을 엮은 옴니버스식 이야기에 가깝다. 하지만 이 과정에서 허클베리와 짐, 두 등장인물의 언행을 통해 그들이 상징하는 미국적인 자유의 정신과 당시 사회상이 잘 드러난다. 그렇기에 이 책은 어니스트 헤밍웨이가 말했듯이 지금까지 가장 미국적인 소설로 평가받는다.

오늘날 미국 웬만한 고등학교의 교과과정에 편성되어 있기 때문에 다수의 미국인이 이 책을 한번쯤은 억지로라도 읽어보게 된다. 미국학교에서 중시해서 읽는 부분은 허클베리가 짐과 함께 추격을 피해 숲에 숨어있는 동안 갈등하는 장면이다. 이야기 맥락상 중요한 친구가 된 흑인 노예 짐을 보호하는게 당연하겠지만, 허클베리가 굳이 갈등하는 이유는 생전 학교를 다닌적 없는 그가 어려서 받은 유일한 교육은 옆집 노과부 더글라스 부인이 해준 성경공부가 전부인데, 이 때 그녀가 도망 노예를 돕는 것은 지옥에 가는 악한 행위라 말했기 때문이다. 이 때문에 어린 허클베리가 앉아서 친구를 배반하고 천국에 가는가 아니면 친구를 지키고 지옥불에 영원히 고통 받을 것인가를 놓고 우습지만 나름 실존적인 고민을하는 것이다. 이는 동시대 작가와 북부인들의 시각을 보여주는데, 남부 기독교인들은 온갖 꼼수로 노예제가 기독교 믿음안에서도 정당하다고 주장했지만, 그게 얼마나 어림없는 헛소리인지를 이 장면을 통해서 드러낸 것이다. 즉, 결국은 친구를 위해 자신의 영혼을 바치기로 한 무학의 허클베리의 행위야말로 예수 그리스도를 떠올리게하는 진정한 기독교인으로써의 모습이고, 오히려 이를 막고 어린애조차 갈등하게 만드는 남부교회는 배신자 유다적이며 비기독교적이라는 비판이 들어가 있다는 것이다. 이는 역사적으로도 존재했던 북부 교회가 남부교회에 가졌던 도덕적 우월감의 근간이기도 했다.

한국에서는 그저 톰소여의 모험의 후속편 정도로 인식되나, 영어권에서는 이 책이 훨씬 지명도가 높다. 톰소여의 모험은 문학적으로 연구되는 일이 없지만, 이 작품은 많이 연구된다.[23]

여담으로 작중에서 허크와 짐이 뗏목을 타고 이동한 거리는 미주리주 세인트피터즈버그 마을부터 아칸소주 파이크스빌 마을까지 약 880km다. 한반도의 신의주부터 부산까지의 도로길이가 약 840km라고 하니 한반도를 종단하는 거리를 뗏목 하나로 여행한 셈이다.

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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

2nd (1st US) edition book cover
Author	Mark Twain
Illustrator	E. W. Kemble
Language	English
Series	Tom Sawyer
Genre	Picaresque novel
Publisher	Chatto & Windus / Charles L. Webster And Company.
Publication date	December 10, 1884 (UK and Canada) 1885[1] (United States)
Publication place	United States
Pages	362
OCLC	29489461
Preceded by	The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Followed by	Tom Sawyer Abroad
Text	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at Wikisource

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.

Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective) and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The book is noted for "changing the course of children's literature" in the United States for the "deeply felt portrayal of boyhood".[2][better source needed] It is also known for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist over 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism and freedom.

Perennially popular with readers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. The book was widely criticized upon release because of its extensive use of coarse language and racial epithets. Throughout the 20th century, and despite arguments that the protagonist and the tenor of the book are anti-racist,[3][4] criticism of the book continued due to both its perceived use of racial stereotypes and its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger".

Plot

Huckleberry Finn, as depicted by E. W. Kemble in the original 1884 edition of the book

In St. Petersburg, Missouri, during the 1830s–1840s, Huckleberry Finn has received a considerable sum of money following The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson become his guardians. Despite preferring life as an errant boy, Huck stays so he can be part of Tom Sawyer's gang. Huck’s father, "Pap", an abusive alcoholic, tries to appropriate Huck's fortune. When this fails, Pap imprisons him in a remote cabin.

After a delirium tremens crisis, in which Pap tries to kill Huck, Huck fakes his own murder and settles on Jackson's Island, where he reunites with Miss Watson's slave Jim, who ran away after overhearing she was planning to sell him. Huck and Jim decide to go down the Mississippi River to Cairo, in the free state of Illinois. After a flood, they find a timber raft and a house floating downstream. Inside the house, Jim finds a man who was shot to death but prevents Huck from seeing.[5] Huck sneaks into town and discovers there is a reward for Jim's capture and he is suspected of killing Huck; they flee on their raft.

Huck and Jim come across a grounded steamboat on which two thieves discuss murdering a third. Finding their raft has drifted away, they flee in the thieves' boat. They find their raft and sink the thieves' boat, then Huck tricks a night watchman into a rescue attempt, which fails when the steamboat sinks. Huck and Jim are separated in a fog. When they reunite, Huck tricks Jim into thinking he dreamed the event. Jim is disappointed in Huck when Huck admits the truth. Huck is surprised by Jim's strong feelings and apologizes.

Jim and Huck on their raft, by E. W. Kemble

Huck is conflicted about supporting a runaway slave, but when two white men seeking runaways come upon the raft, his lies convince them to leave. Jim and Huck realize they have passed Cairo. With no way to go upriver, they decide to continue downriver. The raft is struck by a passing steamship, again separating them. On the riverbank, Huck meets the Grangerfords, who are engaged in a 30-year feud with the Shepherdsons. After a Grangerford daughter elopes with a Shepherdson boy, all the Grangerford men are killed in a Shepherdson ambush. Huck escapes and is reunited with Jim, who has recovered and repaired the raft.

Jim and Huck are joined by two confidence men claiming to be a King and a Duke, and they rope Huck and Jim into aiding in several scams. In one town, the King and the Duke cheat the townsfolk over two nights with a short, overpriced stage performance. On the third, the grifters collect the admission fee from previous audience members bent on revenge, then flee the town. In the next town, the swindlers impersonate the brothers of the recently-deceased Peter Wilks and attempt to steal his estate. Huck tries to retrieve the money for Wilks's orphaned nieces. Two other men claiming to be Wilks' brothers arrive, causing an uproar. Huck flees but is caught by the King and the Duke. He escapes but finds that they sold Jim to the Phelpses. Huck vows to free Jim, despite believing he will go to hell for it.

The Phelpses mistake Huck for their nephew Tom, who is expected for a visit, and Huck plays along. It turns out their nephew is Tom Sawyer. When Tom arrives, he pretends to be his brother Sid, and develops a theatrical plan to free Jim. Huck attempts to warn the King and the Duke that Jim alerted the local residents to their scam but sees them tarred and feathered and being run out of town on a rail.

Tom is wounded during Jim’s escape. Instead of fleeing, Jim stays to tend to him and is arrested and returned to the Phelpses.[6] Tom's Aunt Polly arrives and reveals Huck’s and Tom’s true identities. She explains that Miss Watson has died, and that she freed Jim in her will. Tom admits he knew but wanted to "rescue" Jim in style.[7] Jim tells Huck that Pap was the dead man in the floating house. Huck declares he will flee to Indian Territory to escape being adopted by the Phelpses.

Characters

See also: List of Tom Sawyer characters

Tom Sawyer stealing spoons on the Phelpses' farm

The "King" and the "Duke", by E. W. Kemble

In order of appearance:

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Themes

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explores themes of race and identity; what it means to be free and civilized; and the ideas of humanity and social responsibility in the changing landscape of America. A complexity exists concerning Jim's character. While some scholars point out that Jim is good-hearted and moral, and he is not unintelligent (in contrast to several of the more negatively depicted white characters), others have criticized the novel as racist, citing the use of the word "nigger" and emphasizing the stereotypically "comic" treatment of Jim's lack of education, superstition and ignorance. This argument is supported by incidents early in the novel where Huck deliberately "tricks" Jim, taking advantage of his gullibility and Jim still remains loyal to him.

But this novel is also Huck's 'coming of age' story where he overcomes his initial biases and forms a deeper bond with Jim. Throughout the story, Huck is in moral conflict with the received values of the society in which he lives. Huck is unable consciously to rebut those values even in his thoughts but he makes a moral choice based on his own valuation of Jim's friendship and human worth, a decision in direct opposition to the things he has been taught. Twain, in his lecture notes, proposes that "a sound heart is a surer guide than an ill-trained conscience" and goes on to describe the novel as "a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat".

To highlight the hypocrisy required to condone slavery within an ostensibly moral system, Twain has Huck's father enslave his son, isolate him and beat him. When Huck escapes, he immediately encounters Jim "illegally" doing the same thing. The treatments both of them receive are radically different, especially in an encounter with Mrs. Judith Loftus who takes pity on who she presumes to be a runaway apprentice, Huck, yet boasts about her husband sending the hounds after a runaway slave, Jim.

Some scholars discuss Huck's own character, and the novel itself, in the context of its relation to African-American culture as a whole. John Alberti quotes Shelley Fisher Fishkin, who writes in her 1990s book Was Huck Black?: Mark Twain and African-American Voices, "by limiting their field of inquiry to the periphery," white scholars "have missed the ways in which African-American voices shaped Twain's creative imagination at its core." It is suggested that the character of Huckleberry Finn illustrates the correlation, and even interrelatedness, between white and Black culture in the United States.

Illustrations

The original illustrations were done by E. W. Kemble, at the time a young artist working for Life magazine. Kemble was hand-picked by Twain, who admired his work. Hearn suggests that Twain and Kemble had a similar skill, writing that:

As Kemble could afford only one model, most of his illustrations produced for the book were done by guesswork. When the novel was published, the illustrations were praised even as the novel was harshly criticized. E.W. Kemble produced another set of illustrations for Harper's and the American Publishing Company in 1898 and 1899 after Twain lost the copyright.

Publication's effect on literary climate

Mark Twain

Twain initially conceived of the work as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that would follow Huckleberry Finn through adulthood. Beginning with a few pages he had removed from the earlier novel, Twain began work on a manuscript he originally titled Huckleberry Finn's Autobiography. Twain worked on the manuscript off and on for the next several years, ultimately abandoning his original plan of following Huck's development into adulthood. He appeared to have lost interest in the manuscript while it was in progress, and set it aside for several years. After making a trip down the Hudson River, Twain returned to his work on the novel. Upon completion, the novel's title closely paralleled its predecessor's: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade).

Mark Twain composed the story in pen on notepaper between 1876 and 1883. Paul Needham, who supervised the authentication of the manuscript for Sotheby's books and manuscripts department in New York in 1991, stated, "What you see is [Clemens'] attempt to move away from pure literary writing to dialect writing". For example, Twain revised the opening line of Huck Finn three times. He initially wrote, "You will not know about me", which he changed to, "You do not know about me", before settling on the final version, "You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'; but that ain't no matter." The revisions also show how Twain reworked his material to strengthen the characters of Huck and Jim, as well as his sensitivity to the then-current debate over literacy and voting.

A later version was the first typewritten manuscript delivered to a printer.

Demand for the book spread outside of the United States. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was eventually published on December 10, 1884, in Canada and the United Kingdom, and on February 18, 1885, in the United States.[21] The illustration on page 283 became a point of issue after an engraver, whose identity was never discovered, made a last-minute addition to the printing plate of Kemble's picture of old Silas Phelps, which drew attention to Phelps' groin. Thirty thousand copies of the book had been printed before the obscenity was discovered. A new plate was made to correct the illustration and repair the existing copies.

In 1885, the Buffalo Public Library's curator, James Fraser Gluck, approached Twain to donate the manuscript to the library. Twain did so. Later it was believed that half of the pages had been misplaced by the printer. In 1991, the missing first half turned up in a steamer trunk owned by descendants of Gluck's. The library successfully claimed possession and, in 1994, opened the Mark Twain Room to showcase the treasure.

In relation to the literary climate at the time of the book's publication in 1885, Henry Nash Smith describes the importance of Mark Twain's already established reputation as a "professional humorist", having already published over a dozen other works. Smith suggests that while the "dismantling of the decadent Romanticism of the later nineteenth century was a necessary operation," Adventures of Huckleberry Finn illustrated "previously inaccessible resources of imaginative power, but also made vernacular language, with its new sources of pleasure and new energy, available for American prose and poetry in the twentieth century."

Critical reception and banning

In this scene illustrated by E. W. Kemble, Jim has given Huck up for dead and when he reappears thinks he must be a ghost.

While it is clear that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was controversial from the outset, Norman Mailer, writing in The New York Times in 1984, concluded that Twain's novel was not initially "too unpleasantly regarded." In fact, Mailer writes: "the critical climate could hardly anticipate T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway's encomiums 50 years later," reviews that would remain longstanding in the American consciousness.

Alberti suggests that the academic establishment responded to the book's challenges both dismissively and with confusion. During Twain's time and today, defenders of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "lump all nonacademic critics of the book together as extremists and 'censors', thus equating the complaints about the book's 'coarseness' from the genteel bourgeois trustees of the Concord Public Library in the 1880s with more recent objections based on race and civil rights."

Upon issue of the American edition in 1885, several libraries banned it from their shelves.[27] The early criticism focused on what was perceived as the book's crudeness. One incident was recounted in the newspaper the Boston Transcript:

Writer Louisa May Alcott criticized the book's publication as well, saying that if Twain "[could not] think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses he had best stop writing for them".

In 1905, New York's Brooklyn Public Library also banned the book due to "bad word choice" and Huck's having "not only itched but scratched" within the novel, which was considered obscene. When asked by a Brooklyn librarian about the situation, Twain sardonically replied:

Many subsequent critics, Ernest Hemingway among them, have deprecated the final chapters, claiming the book "devolves into little more than minstrel-show satire and broad comedy" after Jim is detained. Although Hemingway declared, "All modern American literature comes from" Huck Finn, and hailed it as "the best book we've had", he cautioned, "If you must read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating."[34][35] The African-American writer Ralph Ellison argued that "Hemingway missed completely the structural, symbolic and moral necessity for that part of the plot in which the boys rescue Jim. Yet it is precisely this part which gives the novel its significance."[36] Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Powers states in his Twain biography (Mark Twain: A Life) that "Huckleberry Finn endures as a consensus masterpiece despite these final chapters", in which Tom Sawyer leads Huck through elaborate machinations to rescue Jim.

Controversy

In his introduction to The Annotated Huckleberry Finn, Michael Patrick Hearn writes that Twain "could be uninhibitedly vulgar", and quotes critic William Dean Howells, a Twain contemporary, who wrote that the author's "humor was not for most women". However, Hearn continues by explaining that "the reticent Howells found nothing in the proofs of Huckleberry Finn so offensive that it needed to be struck out".

Racial stereotyping

Much of modern scholarship of Huckleberry Finn has focused on its treatment of race. Many Twain scholars have argued that the book, by humanizing Jim and exposing the fallacies of the racist assumptions of slavery, is an attack on racism.[39] Others have argued that the book falls short on this score, especially in its depiction of Jim.[27] According to Professor Stephen Railton of the University of Virginia, Twain was unable to fully rise above the stereotypes of Black people that White readers of his era expected and enjoyed, and, therefore, resorted to minstrel show-style comedy to provide humor at Jim's expense, and ended up confirm‎ing rather than challenging late 19th-century racist stereotypes.

In one instance, the controversy caused a drastically altered interpretation of the text: in 1955, CBS tried to avoid controversial material in a televised version of the book, by deleting all mention of slavery and omitting the character of Jim entirely.

Use of the word "nigger"

Because of this controversy over whether Huckleberry Finn is racist or anti-racist, and because the word "nigger" is frequently used in the novel (a commonly used word in Twain's time that has since become vulgar and taboo), many have questioned the appropriateness of teaching the book in the U.S. public school system—this questioning of the word "nigger" is illustrated by a school administrator of Virginia in 1982 calling the novel the "most grotesque example of racism I've ever seen in my life".[42] According to the American Library Association, Huckleberry Finn was the fifth-most frequently challenged book in the United States during the 1990s.

There have been several more recent cases involving protests for the banning of the novel. In 2003, high school student Calista Phair and her grandmother, Beatrice Clark, in Renton, Washington, proposed banning the book from classroom learning in the Renton School District, though not from any public libraries, because of the word "nigger". The two curriculum committees that considered her request eventually decided to keep the novel on the 11th grade curriculum, though they suspended it until a panel had time to review the novel and set a specific teaching procedure for the novel's controversial topics.

In 2009, a white Washington state high school teacher, John Foley, called for replacing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with a more modern novel.[45] In an opinion column that Foley wrote in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, he states that all "novels that use the 'N-word' repeatedly need to go." He states that teaching the novel is not only unnecessary, but difficult due to the offensive language within the novel with many students becoming uncomfortable at "just hear[ing] the N-word."

In 2016, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was removed from a public school district in Virginia, along with the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, due to their use of racial slurs.

Expurgated editions

Publishers have made their own attempts at easing the controversy by way of releasing editions of the book with the word "nigger" replaced by less controversial words. A 2011 edition of the book, published by NewSouth Books, employed the word "slave" (although the word is not properly applied to a freed man). Their argument for making the change was to offer the reader a choice of reading a "sanitized" version if they were not comfortable with the original.[49] Mark Twain scholar Alan Gribben said he hoped the edition would be more friendly for use in classrooms, rather than have the work banned outright from classroom reading lists due to its language.

According to publisher Suzanne La Rosa, "At NewSouth, we saw the value in an edition that would help the works find new readers. If the publication sparks good debate about how language impacts learning or about the nature of censorship or the way in which racial slurs exercise their baneful influence, then our mission in publishing this new edition of Twain's works will be more emphatically fulfilled."[51] Another scholar, Thomas Wortham, criticized the changes, saying the new edition "doesn't challenge children to ask, 'Why would a child like Huck use such reprehensible language?'"

Adaptations

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