Why Is Huck Finn Banned?

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:01

This week we're discussing a seminal novel by Mark Twain whose timelessness is the subject of much controversy in the United States. While some hail it as an important educational resource, others condemn it as inappropriate for schools.

So in this episode, I want to know, why is Huck Finn banned? Welcome to America, a history podcast.

I'm Niamh Heffernan, and every week we answer a different question to understand the people, the places, and the events that make the USA what it is today.

To discuss this, I am joined by Thomas Smith, professor of american literature and culture and deputy director of area studies at the University of East Anglia. Welcome back, Tom.

Thomas Smith: 00:01:02

Hi, Liam. Great to be back.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:04

Yeah, we were just saying before we hit record just how long it's been since you made an appearance on the podcast.

Thomas Smith: 00:01:10

Have you missed me?

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:11

Oh, of course.

And, you know, I guess, spoiler alert, we are, we've just been talking about Christmas, which might feel a long way off, but we're planning to bring back our kind of friend of the show, Brian Earl, for another bit of a little reunion for the three of us. So that'll be one to look forward to as well.

Thomas Smith: 00:01:27

Christmas content.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:29

Yeah, but Huck Finn is the subject of today's episode. And, I mean, it's a big subject, it's a big book, but we're gonna sort of focus a bit more specifically on the reasons why it's been banned.

Maybe what, what sort of the rationale is why it's still such a controversial book and just try and unpick that to sort of maybe understand the psyche of, you know, some of the sort of Americans who, who are really sort of lobbying for this book to still be banned. So I wonder if you could just talk to us a little bit more about its release and maybe the response that it got at the time.

Thomas Smith: 00:02:07

inn is first published end of: 1884

Like, actually, many books for children were in that era. There was definitely a sense that it was a revolutionary era for children's literature.

d Adventures of Tom Sawyer in: 1876

And, of course, in that book, readers first encountered the character of Huckleberry Finn. So in Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn is the kind of, kind of comic sidekick to Tom Sawyer. In many ways, he features throughout the book.

But it's very much Tom Sawyer's show in Huckleberry Finn. And immediately after Tom Sawyer been published, Twain wanted to write another book using the same characters, broadly speaking.

And he hit upon framing a book around the character of Huckleberry Finn himself. And he started writing almost immediately. Got to a certain point in the narrative when Huck and Jim, their rafters run over by a steamboat, if any.

Mississippi, importantly, in: 1882

So what was revolutionary about the book compared to Tom Sawyer is that it's a first person narration that we, the audience, are absolutely inside Huck Finn's head, and he is telling the story of what happens to him and Jim, who is obviously a black man, an enslaved man, who is trying to emancipate himself from slavery by running away down the river. And, yes, as you say, there was some controversy upon its first release, famously, the Concord public library.

You know, Concord being associated with, you know, people like Emerson and Thoreau and Hawthorne. So in a sense, the kind of intellectual hub of american life in the 19th century. In many ways, Concord public Library famously bans it.

And Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, also has some choice things to say about it. But I think it's important to understand that the controversy around the text at this point has nothing to do with issues of race in american life.

st century. But in the: 1880

problem with the book in the: 1880

ou know, even later on around: 1900

So it's that kind of issues around taste and decency that are at stake which seem kind of very low key compared to some of the issues that it attracts later.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:43

It's odd, really, because to me, you know, reading it today just strikes me as a really early form of what we now come to know as like, a buddy movie. It's like.

It's like one of these sort of road story narratives where, you know, two people sort of brought together in an unlikely way and form a friendship as they travel across America. And those texts, you know, nowadays, when you watch films like that, they're irreverent, they're quite tongue in cheek.

They're a bit silly and rude at times, but they don't garner half as much controversy as Huck Finn did and still does.

Thomas Smith: 00:06:17

Sure.

And, I mean, I suppose the key issue in there is the fact that this is a relationship, an unequal relationship, essentially, between a young white boy and a grown black man who is enslaved. And therein lies the constant question about what kind of book this is that still keeps the Huck Finn discussion cycle going, because the next.

Huck Finn emerges in the mid: 1950

And, of course, this has happened after a kind of canonization of the book, if you like, across the early decades of the 20th century. So when Huckvin is first published, it is moderately successful. You know, it's a successful book. Twain's a big name author at this point.

It's not an insane bestseller to begin with. Right? It's not. It's not a kind of runaway success. It sells well. It doesn't hurt Twain's reputation.

There is a minor bit of controversy in some quarters, but I think even at the time, that's felt to be quite old fashioned and fusty. You know, the idea of this really being problematic text.

unexpectedly, is that in the: 1920

So there's a kind of nostalgia issue in there for them.

And they start pointing to Twain and to Huckfin, particularly as the kind of american masterpiece that shouldn't be kept away from children but actually, you know, should be considered to be one of the most important texts in american literary history. So, strangely, it enters into the classroom, it enters into school.

And that's, of course, when it starts to become controversial because so NAACP mount a campaign against it because of the use of the n word in the book, which.

And, you know, it is a book which contains an enormous amount of problematic racial language, in large part because it is critiquing racism in America.

But that doesn't get away from the fact that encountering this text also comes with the encountering of racial language, which, you know, has become increasingly taboo and offensive across the last decades of the 20th century and the early decades of the 21st century.

So that's the reason why it is a perennial feature on the list of the most challenged or banned books in America, because it is a text which uses racial language, which you cannot avoid if you want to engage with this book and which many people feel is inappropriate to have to encounter in a classroom setting. And also, I guess, alongside that, there is this fundamental question of, is this a racist text beyond the use of racist language? Right.

So its defenders will say that it is a book which critiques racism in America, which, as you just kind of hinted at, is predicated upon a close relationship between a white child and a black man.

Its tractors will say that ultimately, Jim as a character is a caricature, that there is a lot of the kind of minstrel performance of blackness in Jim's character, that the book doesn't take him seriously ultimately, and he doesn't take his quest for freedom, which is, you know, the core of the book, seriously. So, you know, for me, that's why this is such an interesting book, because you will never solve that argument.

And the fact that it exists is what makes this such an interesting american book.

Liam Heffernan: 00:10:17

Yeah. And whenever I think about Huck Finn, I do also think about the likes of Uncle Tom's cabin, which come out also in that time.

And I do wonder if there was an element of Mark Twain seeing the kind of success that Uncle Tom's cabin had that sort of snowball effect of, you know, it was. It was controversial. And kind of because of that controversy, it gained a lot of notoriety and then sold more books.

Do you think, perhaps thinking very cynically, that maybe Mark Twain kind of deliberately wrote something that would be a bit provocative because it would turn heads?

Thomas Smith: 00:10:56

That's really interesting. Now, look, Mark Twain loved selling books, and Mark Twain loved making money.

Uncle Tam's Cabin's published: 1852

And it's not incidental, of course, that it's also a book that is centered around the same issues that, in many ways, Huckleberry Finn is centered around. Around the issues of race, slavery, regional, national identity in America. So, of course, it's published in a very different moment.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is published in the antebellum years, just before the Civil War. So it really inserts itself into the argument that's going on in american life will ultimately lead into the Civil War. And you can.

I think you can see a dynamic relationship between these two texts in many ways, because Huckleberry Finn is a text which is attempting to insert itself into the discussion that's happening in american life about what America looks like after the Civil War, because it's published at a time when America is coming to the end of Reconstruction, when, in many ways, the promises of the Civil War for black Americans are being reneged upon and are being betrayed. So forces of white supremacy are reasserting themselves in the south. Forces of segregation are reasserting themselves in the south.

ack Americans in the south in: 1884

Is there a sense that that's a controversy that will sell books at this point? Well, one thing that I think is really interesting is to look at the reception that this book receives when it's first released.

t was happening in America in: 1884

But there really is not a huge amount of evidence that anyone at the time felt that this was a book that was doing something similar to Uncle Tom's cabin.

s of race in this book in the: 1880

And this is particularly interesting, I think, when we come to think about what happens at the end of this book, because that's long been one of the most controversial and discussed parts of the book, the part of the book when Jim has been in a sense, recaptured.

And Tom Sawyer re enters the narrative and inspired by Tom Sawyer's flights of fancy, in a sense, Huck and Tom put Jim through a very unpleasant ordeal of kind of comic, comic enslavement at that point. And again, defenders of the book will see in this, in a sense, a metaphor for what's going on in american life.

You know, there is something about the way that these two young white boys can play with this black man's life and treat his freedom as a joke, in a sense, at that point in the narrative, which fundamentally says something very deep and difficult about race in american life, that's one reading of it. But at the time, there's no sense that audiences felt that this was a blistering critique of race relations in America.

And I think it's interesting that Twain was touring America at the time the book came out. And that section of the book is one of the ones that he would perform for audiences.

And, you know, he would perform it for laughs, because this is a comic, a comic set piece in some senses. And there was no sense that any audience member there felt that what they were seeing was, again, a kind of devastating critique of race in America.

So, yeah, I don't think the controversy at the time had anything to do with the question of race. And so therefore, I don't think it was germane to his sales figures at that point. I mean, yes, he does make the flip comment that when the.

When Concorde library bans the book, that this will probably sell us a few copies, but I don't think that was the goal.

goes on that reading tour in: 1884

George Washington Cable is a writer who's as famous as Twain in his moment. This tour, it was kind of slightly rock and roll. They were billed as the twins of genius.

You know, they're traveling around America giving a kind of dual lecture every night. Twain would give a reading. Cable would give a reading.

So at exactly the same time, in the same magazine, the same month that Twain is serializing parts of Huckleberry Finn, George Washington Cable, who is a southerner from New Orleans, is publishing essays essentially calling for civil rights to be reinstated for black Americans in the south. And these are controversial. These get George Washington cable death threats.

These mean that George Washington cable has to stop living in New Orleans and move to New England, because people understand that that is a statement about race in America. And if you read them, they are extraordinarily mild in contemporary senses. So, George Washington cable.

Twain's tormate at this exact moment is the one who's catching flack for making pronouncements about race in America, whereas Mark Twain is not controversial for that reason. At this point, even though the whole book, it's almost impossible not to read it as a critique of the south and a critique of race in America.

Liam Heffernan: 00:16:21

I think this is where perhaps Huck Finn being banned can be problematic, when we start thinking about understanding american history.

Because if we start selecting the bits of american culture and history that we want to teach and want to include and address, then we start being selective with the version of the truth that we perpetuate to children and start teaching in schools. Can that be problematic? I guess is my question here. If Huck Finn was banned, I'm surprisingly.

Thomas Smith: 00:16:59

Ambivalent about that question, perhaps because as someone who's spent a lot of time reading and writing about Mark Twain and reading.

Writing about Huckabee Finn as a text, I would find it difficult to come on here and say adamantly that this is a text that has to be taught to all high school students or school students in Britain, because you're always making a decision about what text is going to work for what audience. And I think there is something about the use of racist language in this book.

However, you might defend that on textual terms, because Twain uses that word intentionally.

There are many ways in which that word works in this book, which has a lot to say about race in America, and he's using it to critique racism in America.

But that doesn't get away from the fact that that is not an easy word to confront and to contextualize and to have to be confronted with in a school classroom. So, yeah, I'm very sympathetic to the idea this maybe isn't a book that should necessarily be tackled in a classroom with. With young teenagers.

There are other texts.

If you want to talk about race in America, then, you know, there are other texts that you can use which perhaps don't have those issues or which are actually, you know, written by black Americans themselves from this period.

eresting because famously, in: 2011

I personally probably wouldn't want to teach this to young children for those reasons. I think there are.

I think, you know, these days, as this text, again, kind of disappears deeper into history, I think this is a text that you can tackle at university more successfully, hopefully.

But again, I think, you know, these days, as I say, in the classroom, we are very, very careful about the way that we will then use language that appears in difficult texts like these. So that's not necessarily a straightforward answer, but I do think it's.

It's not as simple as a case of saying, of course, this is an important american book, and therefore, it's ridiculous that it is banned from the classroom.

I think there are other texts which are probably banned for more flimsy reasons than this one, and the mental well being of young pupils having to encounter this book is probably worth contemplating.

Liam Heffernan: 00:19:59

Yeah, and you do raise an interesting point there about the complexity of what makes a book worthy of being banned. You know, and there's a lot that goes into that. It's not just about one thing or the other.

And I think, you know, we had a similar discussion, didn't we, on the podcast before about drag story hour and, you know, some of the issues around addressing LGBTQ issues, you know, with children and some of the people who took offence to that. I think it's really easy to just isolate the people who take offense to all of this, as, you know, right wing nuts.

But it feels like, from what you've told me so far, that actually, maybe there's quite a liberal base that are sort of taking offense or perhaps just simply lobbying for this book because of the content and the language used. Who are the people that are really championing this book being banned?

Thomas Smith: 00:20:58

Well, I think essentially the main reason that this book is challenged these days is to. To do with its racial language. It's not because this is a book which promotes, one might argue, a vision of tolerance in America.

No one's challenging it on that basis. It is because it contains both racial language and depictions of race, which are felt to be demeaning and traumatizing for young Americans. I guess.

Particularly young Americans of color within a classroom setting to have their teachers and peers, in a sense, discussing using this language, potentially as it appears in the text frequently. That is. That is fundamentally the reason that this particular book remains challenged.

Liam Heffernan: 00:21:36

You know, that's interesting. And I think it's. It's also interesting that at the time, you know, that actually championing civil rights was.

Was more contentious than addressing some of the themes that Huck Finn does.

And it just makes me wonder if, you know, there's always going to be some issue or some controversy in teaching materials that address race and slavery in America.

Thomas Smith: 00:22:04

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, the last time. One of the last times I was on, we were talking about, again. Yes. Controversy around children's literature.

And children's literature has always been extraordinarily contested in terms of what it can do, what it can depict, what it can talk about, how it can talk about those things. I mean, that. That, yeah, that is absolutely a conversation that's as old as our concept of a distinct literature for children itself.

So it's unsurprising that this is something that spills over into the classroom and, you know, it's nothing. Yeah, I remember. I remember when I was a child at school, there were periodic controversies about certain texts being the library.

I mean, you know, as you say, I think, you know, sex is probably far more of a trigger point, generally, for book bannings sexual content.

Liam Heffernan: 00:22:51

Yeah.

Thomas Smith: 00:22:51

Then. Than depictions of race.

But, I mean, you know, even if we think about a book like the boy in the striped pajamas, again, another fundamentally controversial text which sometimes finds a place in the classroom still is often challenged because of its place in the classroom. Texts which deal with difficult social issues, issues of race for a young audience, are always going to be controversial.

And some going out of controversy, some remain controversial.

What I think about is interesting about Huck Finn, though, which I think is different in some senses, is that there are many, many books that you will come across in the 19th century which are simply offensive to modern sensibilities. It's not difficult to pinpoint why you might not want to have them in a classroom.

There are books which are nakedly racist, nakedly anti semitic, published throughout the 19th century. Huck Finn, though, I think is far more interesting than that.

There's no way around it, to use Toni Morrison's phrase, which I think remains the best summary of the book. This book is an argument in itself. It's an argument about questions of race in America, about freedom in America, about american identity.

And there is no way to read this book simply. There is no way to read this book unambiguously, and there is no definitive reading of this book.

And that is the reason why I think it survives when other books, like Uncle Tom's cabin, for example, are completely consigned to antiquarian interest.

Liam Heffernan: 00:24:24

Yeah.

And I do think there's something, you know, to maybe say about the more controversial or contentious the book is, perhaps the more reason there might be to actually address that text because it can be used as a springboard to raise discussions.

But, you know, you did also raise an interesting point earlier, you know, as sort of from the perspective of a teacher as you are, that actually, that can be really difficult considering the language within Huck Finn. And, you know, how do you address that and how do you have those conversations without kind of swaying into some really uncomfortable territory?

So I'm just wondering, you know, as a teacher and as both of us being parents, you know, where does that responsibility lie? Like, who decides whether or not a book should be taught?

Thomas Smith: 00:25:10

Well, I suppose there are kind of both very technical answers to that which I wouldn't know, relating to, especially in the american context. School boards, governors, librarians. I mean, there's a whole chain of decision making, I should think, that goes into that decisions.

And when it comes to, I think it is different in a parental context, that's always going to be a subjective and personal decision. I mean, I have not foisted Huckleberry Finn on my children yet. So I feel that if that's.

Liam Heffernan: 00:25:43

If that's any indication, potentially, though, that is where a lot of the conflict sort of occurs, though, isn't it? Because, you know, parents might have particular views over, you know, what they want to expose their children to.

And then not all parents are going to think the same to them. When you've got that collective group of those parents children in the same classroom, there has to be a curriculum that sort of suits all.

So then you kind of end up with a system that almost has to pander to the sort of lowest common denominator to an extent, because otherwise someone will take issue with it.

Thomas Smith: 00:26:18

Yeah. And also, I think, you know, these things are always chronologically contextualized.

I mean, the idea in: 1885

And, you know, as time goes by, sensibilities change, literary aesthetics change. Suddenly, this is a text which has to be on every high school reading list, etc. Etcetera. So, you know, these things are always contextual.

And I guess the question that you would ask as an educator and the question you ask when you're putting together any curriculum is, why? Why do I want to teach this book? What is this book doing? What am I doing?

So, you know, for Huck Finn, there are plenty of reasons that you might want to teach it. What does it say about the literary development of America? What does it say about the use of vernacular?

How does this fit into the development of american children's literature? Or perhaps how do you fit this into considerations of race in America? Absolutely. That's there. How do you fit this into depictions of enslavement?

So, yes, I guess the question is, what do you want to achieve with it as an educator? So, you know, fundamentally, that's the question that I would be asking about when I'm putting curriculums together.

You know, why do I, students need to encounter this book?

And is it worth having to engage with the problematics of that text to achieve that lesson, or is there something else that can, you know, take us in the same direction in a way that is absolutely not going to be problematic for some of my students?

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:56

Yeah. And I guess, you know, we could, you know, talk about whether or not Huck Finn should or should not be taught.

But I do just wonder more broadly what the sort of the backlash and the controversy around the text sort of has told us about America.

Thomas Smith: 00:28:15

Yeah, I mean, that's a good point.

I think you could probably learn a lot about America just from teaching the controversy, which, of course, has long been a kind of approach to engaging with difficult texts, and Huck Finn being an exemplar of that, in a sense, you might get more out of teaching the controversy around this book and a better illustration of what's happening in american history than actually teaching the book itself. So, yeah, I think it tracks different sensibilities and touch points, flash points in american life.

And, as you say, there is something in that journey which I think probably does tell us something about what's happening in America over the long decades of Huck Finn's existence.

And, of course, absolutely still does because, you know, last year, Percival Everett published James, which has been a big book, a significant book, and is obviously a really important intervention in our understanding of Huck Finn and its place in american culture in the 21st century.

I mean, I think the fact that there's been so much attention on Everett's rewriting of Huck Finn and his centering of Jim and his narrative has really enshrined Huck Finn again for the 21st century.

I mean, so this is a book that is, in a sense, arguing with Huck Finn and in a conversation with Huck Finn, but in a way which absolutely almost guarantees that Huck Finn continues to be a text that needs to be tangled with in the 21st century.

Liam Heffernan: 00:29:51

That's a really interesting book. And I think he even got a mention on Obama's reading list that he likes to circular every year.

Well, we actually reached out to percival to try and get him to join us on this episode, and he very politely declined because he's manically busy with his book release. But he did very kindly acknowledge that we were doing this. But maybe a future conversation to get him on the show to talk about that would be great.

Thomas Smith: 00:30:20

Just the fact that in: 2023

Liam Heffernan: 00:30:37

Yeah. And it really does demonstrate this sort of the enduring relevance of Huck Finn that it's still prompting people to write.

Would you call it an adaptation or a sort of spin off or, you know, a reworking all of those things?

Thomas Smith: 00:30:52

I think, you know, in one way or another, it's in conversation with, shall we say.

Liam Heffernan: 00:30:59

Yeah, yeah. And I think, yeah, it's a testament to just how much Huck Finn still generates that conversation.

And maybe that because, as you say, the controversy itself is sort of doing the job of having. Of inciting that sort of debate and discussion around, you know, what is and isn't appropriate to be.

To be teaching and perhaps wider issues around, you know, race in America. So maybe that's a good thing.

Thomas Smith: 00:31:26

Yeah, I mean, that's it. I mean, I think, you know, as long as.

As long as Huck Finn is still doing that job of pushing that conversation into the center ground of american culture, then I think it is, you know, it's a text that we still need to engage with.

Liam Heffernan: 00:31:40

Absolutely. And I realized that, you know, we. We could talk a lot more about a lot of things that we've raised in this.

In this episode, which is probably conversations for another day.

Tom, thank you so much for kick starting what I think will be a number of different conversations around Huck Finn and, you know, american literature around kind of race and slavery. Really glad that you could join us again on the podcast. And for anyone listening, we're going to put loads of links in the show notes as well.

So if there's anything that we've discussed or talked about, you can find links to that there. Tom, if anyone wants to connect with you directly, where can they do that?

Thomas Smith: 00:32:18

Well, thomasroysmith.com is probably your one point of Thomas Roy Smith information.

Liam Heffernan: 00:32:28

Love it. Always love it when a guest has a website of their own and you can find me on x. I'm still there hanging on and on LinkedIn as well.

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Thanks so much for listening and goodbye.