This is a book I read by Mark Twain for my Banned Book Project in subbie year, and is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Released in 1884, it was written in a dialect I found hard to understand, so I used Sparknotes to translate it.
Essentially, Huck Finn gets kidnapped by his drunkard father, proceeding to fake his death and run away. He encounters Jim, his guardian’s runaway slave. As they float down the Mississippi River on a raft, they undergo many adventures, some life-threatening. However, through them, Huck realizes how much Jim cares for him, and comes to care for Jim, too. When a group of con artists sell Jim to a plantation owned by the Phelps family, Huck makes the decision to go and save him. Plot twist, Tom Sawyer is the Phelps’s nephew. Rescuing Jim would turn out to be a roller coaster of an adventure.
Although this book has been banned for reasons including the use of the n-word and for its unrefined language, I enjoyed reading it. It has a nice plot, with each adventure that Huck undergoes being like a mini book within the novel. Each has their own plot twists, characters, and story arc. The book is well written because it is very “real.” The dialect matches the time period and setting of the story, and the lack of the language censorship gives one a sense of what it was like living back then. Also, seeing Huck and Jim get close despite the time period and that Huck grew up in a racist society was quite wholesome.
Additionally, while I don’t particularly like some of the characters, they make the story interesting. One of these characters is Tom Sawyer. Although he and Huck could easily have freed Jim, Tom insists on making it an “adventure” and doing all sorts of unnecessary tasks to live in his fantasies of being a “hero.” While it made the story more fun, it was definitely not practical, which made it a little annoying.
Overall, the book is a fun book to read. If you like action and adventure stories, I would recommend it!
-Joyce Zheng
I remember reading this book in elementary school and enjoying it! I really liked your blog post and how you talked about a banned book!
ReplyDeleteI read this book, and it's awesome to see compassion and wisdom from people like Twain. Great post!
ReplyDelete