Throughout time, the ways in which people perceive literature can be strongly influenced by the moral standards of their time. Due to this fact, some books that today are considered classics by many have been met with hard opposition from those who found the book unacceptable to their own moral codes. Many classics such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and others alike, have been censored or banned in several places.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been a hotly debated book since it was first published in 1885. According to the American Library Association, it was the fifth most frequently challenged book in the 1990's, over a century after its first publication. While many consider it to be one of the greatest American novels ever written, others see it as crude, vulgar, and racist. Even today, Twain’s novel can still spark heated debates about racism.
While most current opposition is race related, the book was originally criticized for its crude dialect. Immediately after its publication in 1885, the Concord Public Library in Concord, Massachusetts banned the book for its harsh language. One official at the library described Twain’s book as, “rough, coarse and inelegant,... the whole book be

Ernest Hemingway wrote in The Green Hills of Africa that, “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn... All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since,” Twain’s unique style of dialect writing was a revolutionary technique in the literary world. While his The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn does use the word nigger, a terrible word in today’s world, very often, he uses it in the context of the time when it did not have such a negative connotation. His book mocks the idea of racism and slavery. Everybody can stand to learn a little from Huck about loyalty and friendship. The idea of banning should a classic novel is ridiculous and would deprive many people of the experience of reading an incredible literary work.

It can sometimes be difficult to discuss these topics when the mere utterance of this word can stir such emotions, but to truly understand the word as it it used in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you have to know the history of that time. It is important to understand that in the 1840's setting of this novel, nigger was a commonly used word and its absence from Twain’s book would be unauthentic. To be true to the dialect in which he was writing, Twain had to use the word.

Many people still have a problem with the book because while slavery has been abolished for over a century now, many of the racist attitudes which Twain satires throughout his novel still exist today. Mark Twain had a remarkable talent to examine society and then write exactly what he saw. In his writings, his basic attitude is “this is how you are”. Many people have a difficult time accepting this idea and therefore Twain’s writings are difficult to swallow for many.

In Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, the have a “Tom Sawyer Day” celebration on Mark Twain’s birthday, but nowhere in the town is there a mention of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck’s hometown of St. Petersburg was based on Hannibal, and many townspeople dislike the book for its mention of their slaveholding ancestors. (Alward) Many citizens just ignore