Samuel Johnson If we need proof that adolescence has always been a difficult age, we can look at those 18th century moralists that were panicked about young people reading novels. Of course if you’re young (to build off of a comment that Barbara makes in response to Friday’s post), part of the fun of reading […]
Tag Archives: censorship
Danger: Georgian Teens Reading Novels
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged adolescence, Henry Fielding, Novel reading, Rambler #4, Samuel Johnson, Tom Jones Comments closed
Empowering Conversations about Race
As I look back over this past week of entries, what conclusions can I draw? First, that literature can serve the cause of race relations in this country. The friendship between Huck and Jim spurred my dreams of black-white friendship when I was a child being raised in segregated schools in the south, and it […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged black anger, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, race relations, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison, white fantasies Comments closed
When I Defended Song of Solomon
I think it was 13 years ago or so when I read in our county newspaper that a high school student was objecting to a book he had been assigned to read in an Advanced Placement English class. The book was Toni’s Morrison’s Pulitzer-winning Song of Solomon, a book on the Advanced Placement list, and […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, power of literature, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison Comments closed
Should Huck Finn Be Banned?
How much impact can images from a book like Huckleberry Finn have upon a reader? I’ve written about the importance of Huck’s courageous stand upon me as a young child, so I would answer, “ a tremendous impact.” But could there also be a negative impact? Could the docile and comic Jim undermine the self […]
Can Huckleberry Finn Damage Readers?
Yesterday I mentioned that Huckleberry Finn has been banned in some schools, perhaps because of Huck’s liberal use of the “n” word. Now Twain, of course, doesn’t use that language because he himself is racist but because he wants to capture Huck’s “white trash” ignorance, which Huck then magnificently transcends. But the argument has gone […]
