Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 21, 1995 TAG: 9508210082
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GERALD GRAFF AND JAMES PHELAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last year parents and teachers at schools in Connecticut and in Texas, as well as at Washington's National Cathedral School, were hotly debating the question of whether adolescents should be required to read the book that Ernest Hemingway declared ``all American literature comes from,'' the book that uses the racial epithet ``nigger'' more than 200 times.
The book has become such a quandary for educators that The New York Times just last month ran an article, entitled ``How to Teach Twain Without Fear,'' describing the efforts of educators to come to grips with the classic.
Different schools have arrived at different solutions to the Huck controversy. Some simply drop the book from the curriculum. Others stoutly defend its place there. Some teach Huck only in elective courses.
In all these cases, it seems to us, the schools are missing a great educational opportunity, one presented not just by the book but by the argument about it. Indeed, in our view the best way to teach Huck ``without fear'' is to teach the debate over Huck Finn.
Teaching the controversy does not mean passing the buck to the students just because adults can't agree about its place in the curriculum. It means inviting students to participate in the dispute so that they can see the enduring issues, the relevance and vitality of the novel, and can better appreciate the critical importance of making arguments, weighing evidence and attempting to persuade others in our increasingly diverse society.
The issues in the debate are both difficult and important: How much power can a single word contain? How much does the answer to that question depend on whether you use the word or are named by it? Faced with a situation in which many readers testify that reading Twain's frequent use of the word ``nigger'' is painful and degrading, should defenders be satisfied with pointing out that that's the way most folks talked and thought back in those days?
Is Twain satirizing racist ridicule of his slave character Jim, or is he also milking such ridicule for laughs himself? In what ways are the issues about black-white relations that the book explores still unresolved in contemporary America? Is Twain's use of the n-word different from F. Lee Bailey's repetition of it during the O.J. Simpson trial?
High school students are very capable of addressing these controversial questions. Indeed, the habit of draining literature of controversy makes it duller and less challenging for students than it can and should be.
We have discovered that our students find the controversy over the banning of Huck far more engaging than such standard ho-hum questions as ``How does Twain's river imagery relate to the novel's central themes?'' In fact, studying the controversy injects life into such standard questions, leading students, for example, to compare Huck's reverent descriptions of the river with his frequently comical descriptions of Jim and other African-American characters.
Some will fear that bringing the debate about Huck Finn into the classroom can only worsen racial tensions rather than heal them. We believe, however, that respectful debate about such divisive issues as race is the best antidote to hatred and polarization, which fester all the more in the absence of discussion.
In fact, teaching the Huck Finn debate is a way of meeting the demand heard frequently today that schools return to teaching values. Students may end up disagreeing about the value of the book and its message, but such disagreement is itself highly instructive. It teaches students that some of their most cherished beliefs are not self-evidently true, and that any worthwhile consensus is likely to emerge only after extended and vigorous debate.
Gerald Graff and James Phelan teach English at the University of Chicago and Ohio State University respectively, and are co-editors of a new textbook edition of ``The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.''
The Washington Post
by CNB