Essay #5: The Words of Mark Twain

The truth can never be covered by the misunderstandings and the predicaments. After the rains of distress, the shining of the sun will still come out and warm our hearts. In the essay of Kaplan, he used the words to tell us that the novel Advance of Huckleberry Finn, which has been written by Mark Twain, is a great book that just like the truth in the world and the sunshine after rains. Although at first, this book has met lots of denial and questioned, its valuable meaning for the literature and the society has been sure today.
In the essay, Kaplan has written that: “For Mencken, Mark Twain was ‘the true father of our national literature, the first genuinely American artist of the blood royal” (P. 375). He also wrote that: “By elevating Huck’s vernacular speech to the level of literature, Mark Twain advanced a cultural as well as literary revolution” (P. 375). At the beginning time of this book has been published, it is an arguable and questionable novel. As it has a black slave character Jim, the words that Mark Twain used for Jim’s words were “rough”, “coarse”, and “inelegant”; also the repeating “N” words. That’s a special point of this novel. Although those words are “rough”, “coarse”, and “inelegant”, without those words, the value of this book I think would be cat to a half. I think those words are a main thing for this book. If Mark Twain didn’t use those words, the character Jim can’t be showed out so perfectly. Jim is a slave; he didn’t know how to use the “nice” English words as he has got poor or no education. So I think those words showed out the nature of Jim. On the other hand, I don’t think the “N” word, which has been repeating so many times in this book, is not being mean to the black people in the society. It is a negative word, and Mark Twain just used this negative word to show something positive from Jim, and also make the positive characters became more positive. For the literary, this book used satire to show out the ideas of Mark Twain in a new and different way at that time. And for the society, the characters Jim and Huck just used their story to tell people what the “human beings” should be. Just like Kaplan said. This book is a “revolution” of not only the literary, but also the society at that time.
At the beginning time of the Advance of Huckleberry Finn having been published, it met lots of difficult. In this essay Kaplan gave the example of: “The reasons variously given were that the book was ‘immoral and sacrilegious,’ put ‘wrong ideas in youngsters’ heads,’ and set ‘a bad example.’”(P. 376) I think library committees had those ideas for this novel at that time was because they thought this novel was just a “bed time story” book. They thought this book was not a good one as a bed time story. In fact, the Advance of Huckleberry Finn is not a story for little children. It has other deeper meanings but not only telling the story of Huck and Jim. I think to start to read this novel, we should have to reach some level of understandings of race, gender, and the structure of the society at that time. Maybe this is not a good story to teach the little children to have behaviors for race people and different genders, but this is a good novel to tell the people what is a real human being should be and the line or way to determine a “human being”.
In the essay, Kaplan said:
No one who responds to its hero’s internal struggles over right and wrong, freedom and slavery, humanity and racism, will ever again be certain that what appear to be “clear dictates of moral reason are not merely the engrained customary beliefs” of a particular place and time. The questions that Huck and Jim pose go to the very heart of the society contract and our faith in public opinion as a guide to conduct. (P. 377)
When people forced on the “N” words or the racism actions of the other characters, they thought this was a book that has poor moral—because those were not the things which are positive for the society’s future. In my opinions, those are not the main things Mark Twain wanted to show in this novel. Mark Twain wanted to tell the freedom of race people, the “wrong” behaviors of humans, and the humanity. And those negative things just Mark used to show out the positive ideas, and also make them be deeper to in the minds of the readers.