Huck Finn Experience Questions

1. Have you read the novel Huck Finn before?  If so where and why?

I have read Huck Finn, and I read it before my senior year of high school as a part of our summer reading assignment.

2. What was your response to reading Huck Finn, and what do you remember from your reading?  Also, did you actually read the whole novel, or just parts of it?  Did you read Cliff Notes or Monarch Notes instead?

Originally, I absolutely hated Huck Finn, but that was mostly because I had to read it over the summer when I could have been doing many other things. When I was re-reading the novel, I remembered most of the story (like the basic characters and plot line) from what I had read, but I couldn’t have recalled enough just by reading Cliff Notes. Thus, I decided to fully re-read the novel.

3. If you were assigned to read Huck Finn in a previous class, either here or in high school, how did your class as a whole react to the novel?  Why do you think your instructor assigned the novel?  How did he or she try to “teach” the novel?

Overall, my classmates liked to novel, but found it to be slightly tedious. I think my teacher assigned it because over the course of senior year, we read many stories of how people come to have different beliefs and thus new lives (like Crime and Punishment.) She taught the novel from a perspective that the book is mainly about how Huck has to grow up throughout the novel.

4. If you were required to read Huck Finn in a previous class, what sort of assignments were you required to complete, and what exactly did you do during the classes when

Huck Finn was being discussed.

I had to answer discussion questions before school started as I read through the book, and during the two classes we talked about it we did an assignment on the different aspects that Huck has to grow in, and then we had to write an in-class essay about it.

5. Huck Finn is still one of the most controversial and most banned books in America.  Why is it so controversial?

I think it is so controversial because of its honest portrayal of the slave-society mindset that most people had in that day and age. I don’t think most people want to think that normal people had slaves, and used words like the “n-word”. I think Mark Twain’s honest seriously scares people, and that’s why most people do not like to accept this book.  

6. Is Huck Finn still relevant to you as college student today?  Should it continue to be taught in college classrooms?

I think it is definitely still relevant to me today. Overall, the story tells a story about how a boy has to grow up and try to buck the system that he has grown up in. I think in any day and age it is important to learn how to question the rules and regulations that we grow up with. I think that college students should especially learn how to take their beliefs into their own hands instead of just trusting what they have always known.

7. The general consensus among critics is that Huck Finn is a brilliant and powerful novel, but also a flawed and problematic novel?

I think the dialogue and the native language used might be hard for people to understand. It may be hard for some people to actually understand what is being said, let alone the meaning behind those words. I think it might be flawed in its use of the “n-word” because for some, it may be hard to overcome seeing that word so often. I also think it could be problematic because, at least to me, the ending was slightly annoying with Tom and Huck trying to release Jim. It seemed to be way too dragged out, and that really made me not even want to finish the novel at all.