A Look in My Mirror

I was reading an article in Newsweek magazine the other day about what types of literature, with racial themes, should be taught in the classroom.  There is an argument out now that says we shouldn’t teach novels such as Huckleberry Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird or Of Mice and Men because of the use of “the n word” and the “Stories that portray African-Americans as inarticulate and unintelligent souls in need of white America.” Yes these novels use the word that shall not be named in them.  Yes the word is offensive.  Yes there is the is a certain negative image of blacks in these novels.  The problem is if you only look at the negatives you will miss the positives, and the positives far outweigh the negatives.

All the novels should be placed in the proper context to be fully understood.  Huck Finn was set in slave-holding Mississippi.  The black man portrayed is a slave.  It was illegal to educate the slaves at the time the novel is set.  But, looking at the character of Jim, you see that he is the more practical of the two.  He understands fully what he has done by running away and tries to avoid detection.  He also shows the greater common sense, which Huck slowly develops throughout the novel.  The whole point of the novel is discovery.  It is set on the Mississippi river, a symbol of discovery Americans would understand in the 1800’s.  They were not far away from the time when the Lewis and Clark explored the country beyond the river and discovered the richness of the land.  Huck is also on a trek of discovery, though he doesn’t realize it when he sets out.  He begins the novel with an elementary understanding of right and wrong.  He believes what the laws dictate about slavery and is guilt ridden about helping Jim escape.  His morals are the morals of the society he grew up in.  As he journeys down the river with Jim he begins to see Jim not as a slave but a man.  In the end he his willing to risk his life to assure Jim stays free from the slave hunters.

By looking solely at the words use and depictions of the characters in the novel you lose the richness of the story.  Mark Twain was trying to teach a nation the lesson Huck learns in the novel.   Twain’s popularity allowed him to reach a wide audience.  If only one person read the story and understood the point Twain was making then it was a successful novel morally.

Mockingbird has a similar theme.  This time the story is set in depression era Alabama.  Scout, the main character, like Huck, has a rudimentary moral system.  Unlike Huck, though, she is not as clouded by the racist views of society.  She is innocent in that manner.  She believes that all men are good decent people.  She doesn’t fully understand the shades of gray that permeate the society she lives in.  Whereas Huck feels guilty about helping Jim, Scout is confused as to why everyone isn’t helping Tom.  She sees the injustice being done and doesn’t understand why.  Through the novel she begins to understand there are differences in people, but she learns to respect those differences, not judge people by them.

The novel shows a girl transformed by the events she doesn’t understand.  Harper Lee, like Mark Twain, is trying to teach the nation a lesson on equality and morality.  Through the eyes of an innocent girl we see the senselessness of what was happening to blacks in the South at the time period.

If anything needs to be done about the novels written it is the need to transform the way the novels are taught.  The themes of the novel are too important to be wasted because of language and imagery of the time periods they are set.  Ultimately we need to see the novel for what they are, an attempt to teach us respect for all men,  an attempt to eliminate the hatred that we find in the nations hearts.

In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never lead to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other.

– John Steinbeck in his 1938 journal entry

Yes I found some of this information on Wikipedia, also the Steinbeck quote.  Mainly I couldn’t remember all the names and places the stories occurred.  That was my sole use of the site.