University of Puerto Rico at Humacao

English Department

Censorship
By:
Arlene Alverio
Denisse Díaz
Laura Vargas

INGL 3251-001
Prof. Luz I. Vega
April 13, 2007
Censorship Defined…
Censorship is the
suppression of ideas and
information that certain
persons -- individuals,
groups or government
officials -- find
objectionable or
dangerous.
Censorship Defined…
It is no more
complicated than
someone saying, "Don't
let anyone read this
book, or buy that
magazine, or view that
film, because I object to
it!"
 Censors
Censors try to use
the power of the
state to impose
their view of what is
truthful and
appropriate, or
offensive and
objectionable, on
everyone else. The
censor wants to
 Censors
Censors pressure public
institutions, like libraries, to
suppress and remove from
public access information
they judge inappropriate or
dangerous, so that no one
else has the chance to read
or view the material and
make up their own minds
Top 10 Banned Classics…
1. Ulysses by James Joyce
Banned on Sexual Grounds

2. Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn by Mark Twain
Banned on Social Grounds

3. Madame Bovary by Gustave

Flaubert
Banned on Sexual Grounds
Top 10 Banned Classics…
4. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel
Hawthorne
Censored on Social Grounds

5. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet

Beecher Stowe
Banned for Language Concerns

6. Of Mice and Men by John

Steinbeck
Top 10 Banned Classics…
7. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Banned with complaints about the
language used

8. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H.

Lawrence
Banned for its sexually explicit nature

9. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

Challenged on Sexual Grounds

10. Candide by Voltaire

Biography of a Censored
Author
 Mark Twain
• Born on November 30, 1835
in Missouri, USA
• Born as Samuel Langhorne
Clemens
• Used “Mark Twain” as a pen
name for his literary works.
It came from his years of
working on Mississippi
riverboats.
• "By the mark twain" meant
"according to the mark [on
the line], [the depth is] two
fathoms" A fathom is the
name of a unit of length in
 Mark Twain
• While growing up, his family owned
slaves.
• Mark Twain’s father owned one slave
and his uncle owned several.
• In fact, it was on his uncle's farm that
Sam spent many boyhood summers
playing in the slave quarters, listening
to tall tales and the slave spirituals that
he would enjoy throughout his life.
• The events of his personal life further
demonstrate his role as an eyewitness
to history.
Mark Twain
• In 1888, Twain earned
a Master of Arts
degree from Yale
University.
• He then was awarded
two honorary Doctor
of Letters degrees
from Yale in 1901, and
the University of
Missouri in 1902.
 Mark Twain
• His first important
work, The
Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calaveras
County, was first
published in the
New York Saturday
Press on
November 18, 1865.
 Mark Twain
• Twain is most noted for his novels
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(which has since been called a
Great American Novel. And
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
 Mark Twain
• Huckleberry Finn, solidified him as
a great American writer after the
production of what some call the
elusive great American novel.
• It is a masterpiece of humor,
characterization, and realism, and
has been called the first (and
sometimes the best) modern
American novel.
 Mark Twain
• Mark Twain also was an American humorist,
satirist, writer, journalist, and lecturer.
• Like any good journalist, Sam Clemens/Mark
Twain spent his life observing and reporting
on his surroundings.
• In his writings he provided images of the
romantic, the real, the strengths and
weaknesses of a rapidly changing world.
• By examining his life and his works, we can
read into the past - piecing together various
events of the era and the responses to them.
 Mark Twain
• We can also dive into the
American mindset of the late
nineteenth century and make our
own observations of history,
discover new connections, create
new inferences and gain better
insights into the time period and
the people who lived in it.
• As Twain once wrote, "Supposing
is good, but finding out is better”.
 Mark Twain
• In 1909, Twain is quoted
as saying :
– “I came in with
Halley's Comet in 1835. It
is coming again next year,
and I expect to go out
with it. It will be the
greatest disappointment
of my life if I don't go out
with Halley's Comet. The
Almighty has said, no
doubt: 'Now here are
these two unaccountable
freaks; they came in
 Mark Twain
• Samuel Langhorne Clemens died
of angina pectoris on April 21,
1910 in Redding, Connecticut.
• So, he did come and go with
Halley’s Comet.
View of a Censored Book
 The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• First published in 1885
• It was also one of the first major
American novels ever written
using Local Color Realism or the
vernacular, or common speech,
being told in the first person by
Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, best
friend of Tom Sawyer (hero of
three other Mark Twain books).
 The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• Twain's novel tells the simple
story of a boy named Huck and
his adventures with a grown up
slave named Jim.
• Huck helps Jim flee as they escape
on a raft in search of freedom
down the Mississippi River. 
 The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• Because of Huck’s
upbringing, he starts out
believing that slavery is
part of the natural order;
but as the story unfolds
he wrestles with his
conscience, and when the
crucial moment comes he
decides he will be
“damned to the flames of
hell rather than betray his
black friend”.
The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• Jim, as Twain
presents him, is
hardly a caricature.
Rather, he is the
moral center of the
book, a man of
courage and nobility,
who risks his
freedom -- risks his
life -- for the sake of
his friend Huck.
 The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• Because of this book, Mark Twain
has been seriously accused by
some of being a "racist writer,"
whose writing is offensive to black
readers, perpetuates cheap slave-
era stereotypes, and deserves no
place on today's bookshelves.
 The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• The book has been called racist
because of it’s use of the word
“nigger”
• The word is used 215 times in the
book.
 The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• That word, in the history of
America, has always been a
degrading word toward African
Americans.
• When they were brought to
America, they were never thought
of as human beings in the first
place, and this word was
something to call a thing that
wasn't human.
 The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• Why is it censored?
• Stereotypes in his portrayal of the
character Jim,
• Excessive use of the racial slur
"nigger,"
• And a paternalistic attitude
toward African Americans are
among the charges made against
Twain by his would-be censors.
 The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• In the United States, there have
been occasional efforts to restrict
the reading of the book. In
addition to its Concord ban, it has,
at various times, also been:
– excluded from the juvenile sections
of the Brooklyn Public library and
other libraries
– removed from public and school
libraries because of its "racist" plot.
 The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• But what is the book
really about?
– It's about nothing less
than freedom and the
quest for freedom. It's
about a slave who
breaks the law and
risks his life to win his
freedom and be
reunited with his
family, and a white
boy who becomes his
friend and helps him
 The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
• Twain in this book is
actually ironic.
• Jim was not only a
slave but a human
being and a symbol of
humanity . . . and in
freeing Jim, Huck
makes a bid to free
himself of the
conventionalized evil
taken for civilization
by the town" -- in
other words, of the
 Page by page online book:

http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/huckfinn/hucprohp.html
Questions?