Twain's great novel not racist; quite the contrary

In an article on Sunday, English professor Tom Wortham is quoted as saying Mark Twain's novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a racist novel. He counts 206 uses of the "N" word as proof. This argument surfaces occasionally, often leading to Huck Finn being removed from library shelves.

But that's the way pre-Civil War white Southern characters have to speak to sound authentic. In a key episode, Huck plays a prank making Jim the slave think that Huck has fallen off the raft and drowned.

When Jim finds Huck alive, he is first overwhelmed with relief, then turns very angry, telling Huck that's no way for anyone to treat a friend who loves him. Huck, stunned into silence, takes several moments before he can bring himself to apologize, needing to think through the enormity of what he's about to do. He'll be humbling himself to a black man; he'll be seeing a slave as a man like himself.

Moreover, he'll defy all the moral and pious arguments he was taught that the slavery of black people was a sacred condition. Huck finally says to himself, all right, if I'm going to be sent to hell for doing so, I'm going to do it anyway. He begs Jim's forgiveness. When he does, he makes a profoundly anti-racist declaration in a great American novel that continues to inspire our most humane understanding.

Jan Wojcik

Potsdam