Alcohol, Violence, and a Whole Lot of Cursing

There are lots of negative social issues in the world, probably too many to count. Lots of parents try to protect their children by banning them from reading or watching stuff that have social issues or bad influences. They do this to prevent their kids from making bad choices. Huckleberry Finn is one of the many books that parents want to ban. It has lots of negative social issues like violence, alcohol, and strong language. This book is especially bad, though, because children in the book, including Huckleberry Finn, the main character of the story, get affected by these issues directly. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, has lots of serious social issues in the book that many parents would say could have a negative impact on their children.

One of many issues present in the book is alcohol, which causes people to become meaner and do things like fight others, be rude, or even lock someone up. Lots of people in the book are alcoholics, like the king, the duke, and even his own father. The alcohol makes them become obsessed about getting more, and they do things like take money from people to get more of it. Huck’s dad even goes as far as locking him in a cabin and trying to take the huge hoard of money that Huck found in a treasure hunt. The alcohol turns these people into terrible people who don’t care what other people think and don’t realize how they are affecting other people. For instance, on page 23 of the book, Huck’s dad is trying to get Huck’s money from Judge Thatcher, the man who is keeping it: “the old man was up and around again, and then he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to try and make him give up the money…” Huck’s dad does this just so he can primarily spend it on alcohol. At one point in the book, Huck’s dad even gets arrested for causing riot in the town because he was so drunk. Alcohol clearly affects many characters, and not just the people who are drinking it, but the people nearest them. Alcohol is definitely a big social issue present in the book because it could cause kids to think that characters like the king are cool and therefore think alcohol is.

Another issue present in the book is violence, which kills and hurts a lot of people, which causes Huck to run away more. This is one of the more common issues in the book. There is a lot of fighting in the book and even a fair amount of deaths. A big problem with this issue to make parents want to ban it even more is that there are plenty of times in the book when a kid uses a weapon like a gun or even kills someone. One example of this is on page 114: “bang! Bang! Bang! Goes three or four guns… the men run along the bank shooting at them and singing out ‘kill them, kill them!’” In that part of the book, Huck’s new friend’s Buck dies from being shot in a war between two rival families. Huck has to deal with a lot of violence in the book, which makes him move from one place to another. It is definitely understandable that parents would want to ban this book, because they probably wouldn’t want their kids thinking it’s cool to shoot people and play with guns. Violence is one of the main negative social issues in the book that could have a negative impact on people who don’t really understand the harmfulness of violence.

A final social issue present in the book is strong language, which is used in very offensive and harsh ways directed at a group of people that some think of as “lower”. This issue comes up a lot, but only one word is used a majority of the time and that word is “nigger”. Nigger is one of the worst curses out there because it is a very cruel word that nobody should use, yet people still use it all the time.  It is clear to see why parents would want to ban the book, because no person should ever call anyone else a nigger. Everyone uses the word nigger in the book no matter what age and they are normally talking about slaves. An example from the book is “each person has their own nigger…” I think this doesn’t just show that people curse, but also that there are clearly problems with the society where one group of people thinks of themselves as more important than the other. Huck uses that word a lot too to talk about his good friends Jim, who was a runaway slave. Strong language is used a lot in this book, which is another reason why parents might want to keep their kids away from the book. Kids could think it’s cool to use the word nigger whenever they want, when they could seriously offend a large group of people.

Alcohol, violence, strong language. These are all serious social issues that are present in the world and also in the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The reason why parents might want to ban this book is because it is packed full of different negative social issues, but the even worse thing is that these issues are happening to kids like Huckleberry Finn. There are a lot of social issues in the world, and a lot of kids don’t know what they are really doing and who they are affecting when. For example, they play with fake guns. Parents might want to ban this book because kids don’t truly know what all the things in the book mean, and they could think nigger is really funny when really it is discriminating against black people, which is not good. Kids can read this book, but they need to know what it is about before they can read it, and they have to know what social issues are present in the book and what they mean.