Voice_Supremacy

Voice Supremacy Literature is created by different people; therefore every piece is different from each other. Every writer is inspired by their views and events they experience though out their lives. Sometimes, the real intentions meant to be written by the author are not withheld, and actually interpreted incorrectly. This can become an issue by the actual plot, perhaps the event in history taking place, or sometimes even the words and tone of voice used by a character. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain uses dialect to construct his characters individuality; yet some readers reject that idea of Twain’s use of language in his book to be good, and prefer to think him as prejudice. Born and raised in Missouri, Twain was able to captivate the sound and spirit from his childhood and put it into use for his novel. Every character in his novel is different, and that was achieved by their way of speaking. Throughout every word the character says, it is able to define each one. Lee Clark Mitchell agrees when he writes, “Language in the novel more generally seems free-floating, especially as a form of self-definition.” When Huck Finn is read, each one of his characters personality comes alive. An example of this would be his use of words, such as “nigger”. Being a word that promotes racism, the characters who in fact were racist, where the ones who used it. Besides words, pronunciation was a key factor to personality for his book’s characters; one of his biggest achievements was creating Huck Finn’s voice. It was known to the reader that he was not educated and incredibly young. His childish ways of thinking made a known sense of youthfulness and innocence, which was acceptable, considering that he was only a fourteen year old boy. While compared to his father who also was uneducated, yet a grown man; Mark Twain made him different, by making his words sound cruel and illogical. When compared to all these other characters, Miss Watson and Widow Douglas are easily noticed as different and of higher social class; making them educated, clearly religious, and older. Twain would revise his characters tones at least two times, to be able to achieve exactly what he wanted (Victor A. Doyno). While some readers and critics see Twain’s dialect as a skill, others see it as appalling. Mark Twain’s use of the words “nigger” or “hell” create an immense controversy, which has been held since the book was first published, and has not been able to overcome it. “Huckleberry Finn is racist, whether the author intended it to be or not”, John H. Wallace states. Not only does he believe this, but others do too. Rather than critics seeing Twain’s use of skillful and powerful language as a reason for why he and his book are so famous. They put is down and believe it should be banned from young readers. As ridiculous as it may sound, people believe that Huck Finn goes as far as damaging black children psychologically, who indeed have to read this book as a part of the school’s reading list (118). Mark Twain’s use of language was not used to show how racist his book supposedly is seen as. Although Twain was raised with slaves, and was taught that slavery was a good thing, he was actually an activist, a grand promoter of antislavery; which is really what the book is about (into 13). Writing a book that would put down blacks would be unreasonable, and ridiculous in his part. The actual intentions for this novel were brought by the characters by using the ingenuousness of language – being as of the way they spoke, towards the terms they would utilize. With this said, it should be obvious that the characters formed the story, where Twain supports the foolishness of slavery. His use of the word “nigger” by his characters was just one of his ways to show how powerful and meaningful the way someone spoke could be, and making the characters racist; not the book. Yet even though that is a fact, it is still a disagreement between readers. Such an argument has been made that people like John H. Wallace have made his own copy where he changed certain words, and he advertises his book to be read rather than the original version (120). Moving on from what his dialect was really intended for, we cannot ignore the fact that in that era people were known to speak the way Twain made it be in his book. Twain did not just make it up, to make it sound funny; his characters were suppose to be realistic to the time period, therefore Twain was able to make it come about. The voices in the book can connect to what you would hear being said in Mississippi in the 1830s. It was something common to them at the time, which is incredibly different than now. A good example to show the differences from now and then would be the use of the “n” word. If a student were to say the word during class now, he or she would end up in after school detention. Some places, go as far as giving out tickets to people who use the word in public. Back then, it was a whole different issue; “nigger” was an ordinary word, just like boy or girl. How else would Twain have achieves such a great dialect, if he wouldn’t have written the truth' The culture and history would be inaccurate; making the book less important than what it is now (14). Twain’s well-built ability to make use of language is shown when he demonstrates the seven different dialects in his novel (xiv), which he used for his characters so they could each have their own unique voice. When read, it is obvious who is speaking, and what race they are, their personality, belief, etc. For that precise reason is what makes Mark Twain the famous writer that he is. Huckleberry Finn is known to be what started Classic American literature, due to his skill in the speech developed upon his characters and how he presented them. Without this, would Huck Finn be as controversial or even considered to be “classic literature”' Would it even be in the school reading list' Wallace gave his opinion over why Huck Finn is an American Classic. Huckleberry Finn is an American Classic for no other reason than that it ridicules blacks to a greater extent than any other book given our children to read. To Wallace, all of Twain’s work just defined one thing – racism. Others as well don’t believe in Twains “skill”. They believe that language in Huckleberry Finn is not an achievement of literature, rather than just a way of “preserving our racist Heritage” (119). On the other hand, some readers respect Twains clever use of language, such as Bernard De Voto, who said by just reading the first line in the book, “Great literature was written in the language of the Americans”. He, as others, acknowledges Twain’s skill as something incredible, and overlooks the negative opinions others tend to point towards to immediately after reading the speech interpreted by his novel. Not only is it overlooked onto racism and informality, but also people intend to see it as just being humorous, rather than taking a look into his originality and genuineness. People seem to think that Twain is actually making fun of blacks, by making them seem foolish and not worth to care for: “We blowed a cylinder head” “Good gracious! Anybody hurt'” “No’m killed a nigger.” “Well, its lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt” (ch32) Wallace pointed out this quote to show his point towards Twain’s supposedly little care for blacks. When the reader interprets this, they either see it as Mark Twain trying to be funny, racist, or just trying to convey a point through his chosen words. Yes perhaps it may seem racist, but his intentions were not to say that black people are not important; but actually trying to show from a conversation, how others thought and their beliefs. It was not necessarily promoting it. Twains dialect for Huckleberry Finn will forever be controversial. Did he mean to do so' Brander Mathews believes so when he says “I applaud Twain’s use of Huck’s voice, not only to create a vibrant character but also to present social issues.” By this being said, someone acknowledges that Twain’s use of language was not only used for the creation conflicts and arguments, but to be able to construct characters. When critics read Huck Finn, they might think as the book being the grand forth to Literature, while others refuse to see it as something so immensely significant and prefer to see it as waste. Twain’s powerful ways of constructing the characters in the book, create something to discuss; how he did it, why he did it, to which he was referring to when he wrote this, what was the actual POINT to his characters informality or formality' Mark Twain, used his characters to tell everyone his beliefs over slavery. The reason his dialect is somewhat hated by many readers to an extent of it being banned is because of how good Twain was able to put it all together. Concerning to what anyone says, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, will most likely remain as true classic American literature. Works Cited Doyno, Victor A. “Precisely the Right tone of Voice.” Literary Companion Series. Ed. Katie de Koster et al. Vol. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. San Diego,1998.43-46. Johnson, C.D. Introduction. Understanding Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. By Mark Twain. London: Greenwood Press,1996 Koster, Katie de. Introduction. Literary Companion Series: Huckleberry Finn. By Mark Twain. San Diego: Greenhaven press,1998 Mitchell, Lee Clark. “The Authority of Language in Huckleberry Finn”. Major Literary Characters. Ed.Harold Bloom. Vol.Huck Finn. Philidelphia. Chelsea House Publishers,1990.126 Wallace, John H. “Huckleberry Finn is Racist Trash”.Literary Companion Series. Ed. Kate de Kostar et al. Vol. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. San Diego,1998.112-120.