The Use of Language
Directions : In your groups, discuss the meaning of the quotations below and consider the import which each idea may have on our understanding of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Discuss the questions below in your groups, but record your own answers on a separate sheet of paper (will be collected). Be prepared to share your answers with the class.
1) The below is from In Black and White: Conversations with African-American Writers: Toni Morrison .
“I deplore are that is only that [art for art’s sake]; I think [that] is just rather a fresh, young, new idea that’s about 80 or 90 years old - art for art’s sake. I think it [art] has to represent the world that the artist inhabits, or somebody inhabits, and it has a missionary quality in this sense - it should enable; there should be some epiphany, some shock of recognition - some way in which one sees clearly. It shouldn’t be a solution, necessarily; this is not an Anacin or an aspirin that takes away a headache; it is to move us a little bit further down a road that might be called toward real civilization.” a) What are Morrison’s views on art? b) What does she mean by “there should be some epiphany” and “it shouldn’t be a solution”?
2) The below is from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham City Jail” (1963).
“I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.”
But when … you have to connect and answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘white’ and
‘colored’; when your first name becomes ‘nigger’ and your last become ‘John,’ and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title ‘Mrs.’; … then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” a) How does King use the word “nigger” to emphasize his argument? b) How does it compare to his use of the word “colored”?
3) The following is from Judge Reinhardt for his US Circuit Appeals Opinion for Monteiro v. Tempe
(1998).
“[…] it would be folly to think that there is a certain “safe” set of books written by particular authors that all will find acceptable. [...] the function of books and other literary materials, as well as of education itself, is to stimulate thought, to explore ideas, to engender intellectual exchanges. Bad ideas should be countered with good ones [...] It cannot be disputed that a necessary component of any education is learning to think critically about offensive ideas - without that ability one can do little to respond to them.”
Do you agree with Reinhardt’s Opinion? Must we encounter the worst aspects of our history? Must we grapple with terrible ideas in order to combat them? Explain your reasoning.