Lesson 5.01: The Pen

The novel Adventures of Huck Finn by Mark Twain opens with the warning above from the author. Twain did not want his use of dialect to be a distraction or sense of confusion to his readers. He wanted readers to understand that he knew the different dialects and how to use them correctly. He also used humor to convey information to his readers.

Ernest Hemingway declared that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." T. S. Eliot called the novel a "masterpiece." The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a required reading in many high schools and is among the most taught works of American literature.

Yet, the novel Huck Finn has been a source of controversy almost continuously since the day it was first published in America in 1885. The Concord Public Library in Massachusetts immediately banned it as "the veriest trash, suitable only for the slums." A newspaper account described the novel as “a series of adventures of a very low grade of morality; it is couched in the language of a rough dialect, and all through its pages there is a systemic use of bad grammar and an employment of rough, coarse, inelegant expressions. It is also very irreverent. . . . The whole book is of a class that is more profitable for the slums than it is for respectable people.”
-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 17, 1885

The Brooklyn Public Library followed suit in 1905, removing it from the children's room because Huck was a liar who "not only itched, but scratched," was dirty, used terrible grammar, and "said 'sweat' when he should have said 'perspiration.'" By 1907 libraries in Denver, Omaha, and Worcester (Massachusetts) had removed the book because Huck and Tom were "bad" role models. During the 1930s, many libraries purchased "junior" versions of the novel, which omitted sections and simplified the language.

Twain's response was "I have no color race prejudices nor castesocial classes prejudices nor creedreligious beliefs prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse."

One of your goals throughout your reading is to discerndetermine whether or not you agree with these critics. Should Huck Finn, or any book for that matter, be banned from libraries? You decide.

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Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in 1835. He moved to Hannibal, Missouri, the setting of many of his stories, at the age of four where he befriended some of his most famous character prototypes. Clemens worked on the Mississippi River for a number of years. He was a steamboat pilot until the end of the Civil War. He loved the river so much that he chose his pen nameA nom de plume, or pen name, is a pseudonym that the author chooses to replace his real name. as Mark Twain.

When crewmen test the depth of the water, if someone shouts, "mark twain," that means there are two fathomssix feet, or a depth of twelve feet of water. A twain means the number two. That is not enough water to safely navigate the boat.

Writers are often influenced by their surroundings. Mark Twain was one of them.

Look at the map below of Twain's hometown of Hannibal. What do you notice first about the map? You may notice what an important role the Mississippi River played in Hannibal, and, therefore, the river played a significant role with Twain.

Mark Twain was a humorist and a realist. He was considered the father of realism because his stories about real life characters captured the hearts of all who read them. His stories made people laugh, and they related to his characters. One of the reasons that Mark Twain is considered the foremost pioneer of realism is that his writing portrays life as it actually happened with no idealismA literary movement that focused on personal ideas - how the author felt things should be, not as they actually were. or romanticismA literary movement that focused on individual freedom without political or social restraint. It focused on the individual over society and emotion over rational thought.. He used his personal experiences for his novels.

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