The N-word at the time of Huck Finn

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, since I haven't read HF in dekkids, I don't recall that, in the
book, Jim, though referred to as "nigger" or "Nigger Jim," is ever
addressed that way. But, even if my memory is correct, I don't know
that any conclusion can be drawn from that, since Twain couldn't have
been particularly concerned with offending his black readership.

IMO, Twain sorta dug ol' Jim. In another book or, perhaps, only a
novella, whose name I can recall only as Tom Sawyer [?Traveler?
?Aeronaut? ? ... ?] (my maternal grandfather owned Twain's collected
works), Twain allows Jim to demonstrate to Tom the illogic of the
saying, "Birds of a feather flock together."

And I think that attempts to ban HF from schools, from public
libraries, or from anywhere else, are totally asinine.

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 9:40 PM, Barbara Need <bhneed at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Barbara Need <bhneed at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â The N-word at the time of Huck Finn
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I am grading papers about racism in _Huck FInn_ and several students
> have said something implying that _nigger_ was offensive at either the
> time the book is set or the time Twain was writing (or both). I have
> not found anything very useful in the archives. Do we know how
> offensive the word was in the 19th century?
>
> Barbara
>
> Barbara Need
>
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