Tag Archives: Huckleberry Finn

Beware of Literature’s Purity Police

By Robin Bates | Published: November 3, 2017

Laura Moriarty’s “American Heart” has been attacked for being a white savior narrative. Such stories should in fact be critiqued, but the attackers are often a bigger problem.

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A Cradle Yet Shall Save the Earth

By Robin Bates | Published: August 27, 2017

Mark Twain has fun in “Huckleberry Finn” with today’s New Testament reading, which is about Moses being discovered in “the bushrushers.” Victor Hugo also has a charming poem about the incident.

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How Trump Is Changing the Discourse

By Robin Bates | Published: May 12, 2016

Adam Gopnik of “New Yorker” and Andrew Sullivan of “New York” are very, very frightened by the rise of Trump. As they explain why, they quote Tom Stoppard, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Plato.

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Cruz as Beowulf? Try Grendel

By Robin Bates | Published: October 28, 2015

Thursday Normally I would be delighted with a New York Times article that matched up presidential candidates with works of literature, such as Ted Cruz with Beowulf, Hillary Clinton with Persuasion, and Bernie Sanders with Around the World in 80 Days. This piece, however, strikes me as so uninformative that it’s all but useless. I’ve tried […]

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Trump as the Duke of Bilgewater

By Robin Bates | Published: September 15, 2015

Although a couple of recent articles have compared Donald Trump to Pap in “Huckleberry Finn,” I find him to be much more akin to the Duke and the Dauphin. Which is to say, an ace con artist.

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The Complex Inner Life of Teachers

By Robin Bates | Published: June 16, 2015

Lily King’s “The English Teacher” is filled with literary lllusions, most of them thematically important.

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Superstition & Power Relations

By Robin Bates | Published: June 13, 2014

To honor Friday’s 13th, here’s how Mark Twain handles superstition in “Huck Finn.”

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#CancelColbert, #CancelMarkTwain

By Robin Bates | Published: April 2, 2014

Carl Rosin, a high school teacher I admire tremendously, shares below how he will be using a recent public dust-up about a Stephen Colbert tweet to help his students understand the power and danger of satire, especially as it applies to Huckleberry Finn. I love the tweet that Carl imagines could have emerged out of Huck […]

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Top 10 Parent-Child Classics (Positive)

By Robin Bates | Published: March 25, 2014

A top ten list of classics with positive depictions of parent-child relationships.

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