The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain has always been a very controversial book. When it was written ion 1884 people considered it wrong because of how positively slaves are treated, and now it is a controversial book because of how negatively blacks are treated. But even with all these critics it is still believed to be the great American novel by many people because of its very accurate portrayal of southern society at that time, and because of the moral and the immoral examples the characters present. For all its supposed flaws it is still the great American novel.
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn does a very accurate job or portraying southern life in the late 1800's. The dialogue of the story is extremely accurate because Twain lived at that time and so knew how people spoke and wrote it that way. Because of this accuracy some people now are not happy with the book. "Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door."(Pg 14) The word nigger is one repeatedly used in the story and is one of the things that cause a commotion about the story. In the time it was written nigger was a common word, that's just what you called black people, now days it's a socially unacceptable word. But if you edit out or change nigger to anything else, the story immediately loses its authenticity and is no longer worth reading because it would sound extremely bad. The authentic dialogue is one of the things that make this story so good and historically accurate.
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Another reason The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered the great American novel is because of the moral examples that it sets. The decisions Huck makes in the story would now be thought to be very moral and proper but back then it was considered horrible to even think about doing some of the things that Huck did, like help Jim escape slavery. "People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum.
