The Daily Procrastinator

In Chapter I, Huck described how the Widow Douglas took him in to “sivilize” him and how Miss Watson came into town fleeing a rampant illness in St. Louis.  One night, after a strange green haze illuminated the night sky, Huck leaves the house to go on an adventure with Tom…

Chapter II.

WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow’s garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn’t scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson’s big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:

“Who dah?”

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn’t a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I’d die if I couldn’t scratch. Well, I’ve noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t sleepy — if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:

“Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn’ hear sumf’n. Well, I know what I’s gwyne to do: I’s gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin.”

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn’t scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn’t know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn’t stand it more’n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore — and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.

Tom he made a sign to me — kind of a little noise with his mouth — and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they’d find out I warn’t in. Then Tom said he hadn’t got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn’t want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.

As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn’t wake.

Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. Tom asked where Sam Peckins was but none of the other boys said they seen him, which was funny cause Ben lived right up the street from him. We waited a bit longer but Sam never showed so we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river a bit, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. Tom fussed every now and again that Sam warn’t there – he was supposed to bring some of his mom’s biscuits.

We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn’t a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:

“Now, we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.”

Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn’t eat and he mustn’t sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn’t belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever.

Just then a noise back from where we entered the cave started everyone up. It was a shuffling sort of sound, like when you drag a log behind you on a gravel road, only it was short sounds. Tom looked around at us and then gave us a grin, putting his finger up to his lips telling us to get quiet. Then Tom whispers:

“Listen, that’s gotta be old Sam Peckins finally getting here and aiming to give us a fright. Well, we’ll pull one over on him. Red, give Ben here your candle and get beside the entrance there in the dark. We’ll tuck in here at the back of the cave and make like we didn’t hear a thing. When Sam gets past you, you jump out and give him a fright, and won’t we have the laugh!”

So we all huddled around Tom and the oath with a few candles lit and made like we were going over it some more. Red hid in the dark near the entrance and then we waited. The shuffling sound grew a bit louder as Sam neared, and every now and again one of us would sneak a look over a shoulder because blamed if Sam wasn’t giving us a little scare because he was taking his time.

The shuffling noise got closer and closer, and we heard Sam’s breathing kind of heavy, too, to add to the effect. Then the shuffling stopped and Red screamed out, only it wasn’t a scream to scare Sam, but more like Sam managed to scare Red, despite Red knowing he was coming.

All of us jumped up and looked to see how Sam had done it, but it warn’t Sam at the entrance. It was a taller figure dressed in what was burial clothes – the kind you see on bodies that ain’t got no money for a proper ceremony or loved ones to do them up right. The jacket was short on the arm, which was thin and white and spotty with dirt and grabbing at Red’s shirt. Red was still screaming and yelling and trying to get away, but the stranger got hold of Red and pulled him toward him, bending down at him. Red yelled out, but all of us seemed frozen to our spots, we was so surprised. That is, all but Tom.

Tom ran at the stranger and attempted to shove at him to get him away from Red. And that’s when the stranger turned to look at the rest of us. I’ll never forget that face: it was the same white as the arm but dirtier, and darker stains not like dirt were on its chin and lips. It was dried blood. Its face was narrow and looked as if it hadn’t eat in ages; its eyes focused on Tom and it let out a snarl of rage, almost as if it knew who it was looking at. And of course, it did. It was Injun Joe, come back from the grave for his revenge.

Well, Injun Joe let go of Red and moved at Tom, reaching out with a hand that seemed more like a claw; the skin and flesh of his fingers had been torn off back when he was trying to dig his way out of the cave he had been locked in, I remembered hearing. Tom gave out a yelp and backed off, he was so shocked at the sight before him, and moved back with us. Red had fallen down into a heap behind Joe, but it warn’t no matter because Joe was now fixed on Tom. He swept his arm at Tom, but Tom was too quick for him, and he came back to the rest of us at the back of the cave.

“Pick up any rocks you can find, boys!” Tom says. “That’s our only chance!” So those of us who warn’t still frozen with fright started picking up what stones we could find and getting ready to chuck ‘em at Joe. Injun Joe didn’t seem to hear or understand, but kept on coming, dragging his feet, though, as if chained. He got nearer and nearer, and the smell! It was most enough to gag a buzzard! I won’t lie — I thought we was lost.

Just then another figure came in through the entrance – it was Miss Watson’s Jim! He had a heavy looking log in his hand and rushed up behind Injun Joe and swung with all his might at his head. Smack! A sickening thud and Injun Joe’s head just seemed to burst like a melon when the log hit it. Some teeth and some other stuff hit against the side of the cave and what was left just kind of crumpled in a ball. Jim looked at the log, covered with the remains of Injun Joe’s head, and dropped it disgusted. He then looked around at us and says:

“Mars’ Tom, Mars’ Huck, you’s all right? I’s bin following you’s since you seen me whens you lef’ de house – I was jus’ foolin’ with you a bit by pretendin’ to be sleepin’ whens you saw me. Then’s I seen this man follow you alls into the cave, so’s I had to make sure you’d be allright. I din’t mean to hit him so hard, but he had me scared for you’s.”

Tom told Jim to never mind about that, that he done what he needed to. But we needed to work out what was going on and what we was going to do as we all recognized that the body in the cave belonged to Injun Joe, who we knew was dead. Then Ben Rogers piped up:

“Tom, maybe Injun Joe wasn’t really dead!”

“Ben, how you talk! The whole town done come around to see his body. Judge Thatcher hisself knew the body to be Joe’s, and don’t you think I would know him?”

“Then how do you explain his walking around here, trying to get you?”

“I don’t rightly know, but I read a book once about bodies that came back to life.”

“Tom, you ain’t talking about the Bible are you? We all here know about that one.”

“No, Ben, not the Bible. This book talked about people who come back from the dead were zombies, and prowled the night and ate nothing but human flesh.”

“Ate human flesh? Why on earth would they do that?”

“I’m not sure, the book didn’t give any particulars on that, but that’s what they ate. And the only way to kill a zombie was to destroy its head, like Jim done with Joe here.”

“So then we’re done with all this frightfulness, right? Jim done killed it!”

“Maybe so, Ben. At least I hope so. But the book says that a person that’s been bit by a zombie is infected and will soon die and turn into a zombie himself.”

“That’s rotten luck, but none of us got bit, thanks to Jim, right?”

All of nodded in agreement at that, though I noticed at the time how pale Red got at that. Maybe ‘cause he was so close to being bit himself, I thought.

We decided then and there not to breathe a word of this to anyone, because it would have caused so many problems for Jim seeing as how he killed a man, no matter if the man was already dead. And it all seemed over, anyway. And nobody was going to miss Injun Joe, neither. So we talked it over some more and swore each other to secrecy, and decided never to come back to the cave. After that night, playing robbers didn’t seem to hold no interest for many of us anymore, and we put an end to the talk of killing our relatives.

We made our way home, and Ben walked Red home, who was still shaking and tearing up a bit. Injun Joe must have wrenched his arm a bit, I thought, as he was holding it close to his side.

I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was dog-tired. But that night’s events wasn’t far from over. Not by a stretch.

Next week: St. Petersburg has a zombie problem.

The Daily Procrastinator bustled with new posts this week, and this is your chance to make sure you didn’t miss anything!

• For comic book readers and fans of the Marvel universe, Juggernaut posted a review and commentary on Thor #600, the most exciting issue of Thor in a long time.
• Sports-hungry readers will find TallGirl’s post on the A-Rod steroids scandal and BigRedPoet’s prediction that the Houston Texans will be next year’s Arizona Cardinals filling, indeed.
• The Daily Procrastinator has your dose of pop culture, too: TallGirl’s Felicia Day girl-crush confession and FlashCap’s first installment of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the Zombies are sure to give you your entertainment fix for the day.
• TallGirl addressed both hope and adversity in today’s economic climate, offering strategic advice for freelancers and thoughts on how to discuss layoffs with those affected by them.
• Finally, the Procrastinators have offered their opinions. BigRedPoet offered and honest but opinionated look at the silliness of modern nurseries, and TallGirl voiced her thoughts on buying coffee in unfamiliar surroundings.

Visit The Daily Procrastinator at any of the links above and sign up to receive daily email updates so you never miss an article!

The Daily Procrastinator: Contributing to the Dramatic Reduction of Your Personal Productivity

Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a book I plan on purchasing and devouring [sorry] as soon as it hits the shelves of my local bookstore, and I know many of the contributors to the DP plan the same. As most clever ideas do, Mr. Grahame-Smith’s novel has spawned this imitation [though I obviously am not privy to anything about his work other than what I've read on the above link and amazon]. Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn hold a very special place in my heart (see my very first post on this site), and so I decided to have a little fun with Twain’s novel. I hope for nothing else but that readers have some fun with what I provide here…and so…

…with all apologies to Mr. Mark Twain…

NOTICE: Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be eaten…by zombies.

CHAPTER I.

YOU don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly — Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is — and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. All the robbers, including Injun Joe, was dead, so there warn’t no fear in anyone coming to claim it from us. At least that’s what we thought at the time. We got six thousand dollars apiece — all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round — more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them, — that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no stock in dead people. But I learned otherwise real soon. Dead people can learn you plenty.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to any- body, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.

Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her. The Widow never talked about why her sister came to St. Petersburg, but every now and then I heard them talking about people being sick in St. Louis, so I figured it was just an outbreak of the smallpox she was staying away from. Miss Watson took a set at me now and again with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, “Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;” and “Don’t scrunch up like that, Huckleberry — set up straight;” and pretty soon she would say, “Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry — why don’t you try to be- have?” Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn’t mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn’t particular. I wish I’da been a little more particular now. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn’t say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no good.

Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.

Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about some- body that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. That’s when the greenish haze lit up the sky like a mass of fireflies. I can’t tell you what exactly it was, but it only lasted a minute or two. The haze, that is. The dog stopped a-crying and even the wind seemed to go still. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that’s on its mind and can’t make itself understood, and so can’t rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn’t need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn’t no confidence. You do that when you’ve lost a horseshoe that you’ve found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn’t ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you’d killed a spider.

I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke; for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn’t know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go boom — boom — boom — twelve licks; and all still again — stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees — something was a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a “me-yow! me- yow!” down there. That was good! Says I, “me- yow! me-yow!” as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and scrambled out of the window on to the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me. But he warn’t all that was waiting…

[Come back next Wednesday for our next installment, where Huck and Tom play zombie killers!]

I’m a high school English teacher, and have been for the past eleven years. How I got into teaching is a long, drawn-out story that I won’t bore you with right now, but at the base of it is a love of literature and a love of writing. My favorite novel, and the one I look forward to teaching each year, is Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and its power continues to affect me and my students every time. I’m not kidding – I get tears in my eyes every time Huck tears up that letter (if you’re not familiar with that moment, READ THE BOOK).

Which is why I take efforts to remove Huck Finn from school reading lists so personally.

The latest attempt is currently occurring in Washington at Ridgefield High School, and this time it’s not a parent whose knee-jerk reaction to the word “nigger” (repeated over 200 times in the work) is causing the controversy, but an English teacher’s request. Ridgefield English teacher John Foley wrote a guest column for a Seattle paper where he wrote:

“The time has arrived to update the literature we use in high school classrooms […] Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States, and novels that use the ‘N-word’ repeatedly need to go.”

But I would ask, why stop there, Mr. Foley? As long as we’re ignoring any and all context in which novels are written, let’s not read anything that might prove offensive or detrimental to students’ feelings. After all, aren’t ALL students’ feelings worth considering, not just our African-American ones? With this threat in mind, I started looking through my own high school’s reading list in an effort to determine which works could be targeted.

Let’s start with the word “nigger” – obviously, Twain’s Huck Finn is gone. Tom Sawyer is, too. So are any number of his short stories and essays, including a scathing condemnation of a southern lynching entitled “Only a Nigger.” But Twain’s not the only author whose works will be culled. So, too, will Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” is removed, as are any number of his novels. Flannery O’Connor is also guilty of using the word in a few of her stories. Catch-22 is gone. A few Hemingway works won’t make the cut (including The Sun Also Rises) and, to be consistent, neither will Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying, Richard Wright’s novels Black Boy and Native Son, and Frederick Douglass’ Autobiography (and most other slave narratives I’ve read). So right there we’ve effectively silenced four of the greatest African-American voices in American literature. But, hey, at least students won’t be exposed to the word “nigger,” right?

Swear words (not just racial epithets) are offensive, too. Good-bye, Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, Cold Mountain, Catch-22, Invisible Man, A Lesson Before Dying, and Fahrenheit-451 (oh, the irony!). The boys of Lord of the Flies should have their mouths washed out with soap, and Orwell’s 1984 is horrid. Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima is gone (and I haven’t even mentioned the witchcraft in that one…oops), as are Seabiscuit and A Separate Peace. Don’t even get me started on Grendel, that monster (why can’t he act civilized?). Also gone, it should be noted, is Foley’s suggested replacement Going After Cacciato (which I love, too). No wonder I hear all sorts of curse words in the hallways – the literature students are reading is setting the standard.

Let’s move on to not just words, but actions (actions speak louder than words, you know). I know many people find sex offensive, particularly between unmarried people. So, so long, Scarlet Letter and Cold Mountain; good bye, Romeo and Juliet. The Great Gatsby has an affair in it, so scratch that, and the trouble in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible all starts with an affair between John Proctor and Abigail (but maybe we can leave that one in, since John is hanged at the end). Wait a minute – Willy Loman has an affair in Death of a Salesman – obviously Miller has some strange fixation on sexual trysts so let’s ban ‘em both. Catch-22, A Lesson Before Dying, and Invisible Man are now three-time offenders, so perhaps we can burn them and drive home the point (I mean, do they have ANY redeemable qualities? Oops, that’s beside the point). Dances with Wolves - Dunbar masturbates! And then he fools around with Stands With a Fist (this is after being fondled by some young indian, oops, Native-American women). The senior level reading list is chock-full of sex (implicit and explicit) — Kate Chopin, you’re not fooling anyone. Nude women abound in The Odyssey, and The Picture of Dorian Gray is scandalous (the foreword Wilde writes notwithstanding). Not a sexual episode, but in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels the titular Gulliver actually pees on a house to douse a fire – how lewd! Students don’t need to be reading that, it’s distracting and they’d laugh, and then the next thing we know THEY’LL be peeing on house fires (maybe we could just excise that portion).

And what about witchcraft? Of course there’s Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima, but we’ll also say goodbye to Macbeth, Hamlet and Julius Caesar (is there ANY Shakespeare work that would be safe?) and The Crucible centers around it. If we throw in religion (don’t want to start in with what any religious books say, as it might make some students uncomfortable) we also have to get rid of The Poisonwood Bible, any Puritan readings (Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, for example), and let’s just ignore any allusions made in any other works (”Mr. Williams, what does Patrick Henry mean when he says ‘Don’t be betrayed by a kiss’?” “Just ignore that line, student of mine, it could be offensive if I explain it”). Practically nothing Abraham Lincoln wrote could be read (he was President! How dare he quote the Bible!), and more recently published novels being considered by our English staff like Life of Pi and The Kite Runner (both finalists for our local community reading program) are immediately verboten. Oops, perhaps I shouldn’t use German because of the negative connotation it might have.

Strangely enough, graphic violence doesn’t seem to offend anyone. But violence is usually accompanied by swearing (people who get shot/stabbed/poisoned are generally nonplussed) so it’s a moot point.

Some reading this might reply that I’m descending onto a slippery slope. Perhaps a bit, but I would also point out that every specific work mentioned above has been challenged at a school somewhere in this country for the exact reason given. So here’s the question: if we shouldn’t include anything in our curriculum that could possibly/maybe/might offend someone, what exactly do we read? Does context not count anymore? Does authorial intent not mean anything? My entire AP reading list is gone. Most of the works included in my high school’s English curriculum are questionable because they could make some students uncomfortable, and apparently that’s not what some in high places believe literature should do.

But I would argue that this is EXACTLY what it should do. This is what great literature (i.e. education) does: it makes us question our society, our world, our selves, and questions without immediate answers are uncomfortable. When we read any novel, we come into it with preconceived ideas and if the book makes us question those ideas, we’re forced to THINK about why we believe the things we do. Huck Finn makes us think about race (which will ALWAYS be an issue in the U.S., even if we abolish the word ‘nigger’) and how supposedly civilized people treat one another. It’s a tale of how difficult it actually is to overcome the supposed “truths” society feeds us from day one, and it’s a tale of friendship. To ban this book (and others) for the use of deemed “offensive” words, disregarding entirely the context of such use and the author’s intent, is a crime far greater than making a student uncomfortable. Yes, some ideas we encounter in our education can be offensive, but if teachers are just in the business of reinforcing preconceived notions/ideas, playing it safe, why the hell are we here?