Adventures Of Huck Finn And Society Essays - English-language Films

Adventures Of Huck Finn And Society "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn," according to Ernest Hemingway. Along with Ernest, many others believe that Huckleberry Finn is a great book, but is the novel subversive? Since this question is frequently asked, people have begun to look deeper into the question to see if this novel is acceptable for students in schools to read. First off subversive means something is trying to overthrow or destroy something established or to corrupt (as in morals). According to Lionel Trilling, " No one who reads thoughtfully the dialectic of Huck's great moral crisis will ever again be wholly able to accept without some question and some irony the assumptions of the respectable morality by which he lives, or will ever again be certain that what he considers the clear dictates of moral reason are not merely the engrained customary beliefs of his time and place." Trilling feels that Huck Finn is such a subversive character that this will not make people believe in something totally again, because they will fear being wrong like the society in Huckleberry Finn was. I believe this and I think the subversion in the novel is established when Mark Twain begins to question the acceptable morality of society. Twain uses humor and effective writing to make Huckleberry Finn a subversive novel about society in the 19th century. Huck Finn, a boy referred to as "white trash," is a boy that has grown up believing totally what society as taught him. This passage shows an example of how society teaches him. "...And keep them till they're ransomed." "Ransomed? What's that?" "I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in the books, and so of course that's what we've got to do." "Well how can we do it if we don't know what it is?" "Why, blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?" (8-9) This is a conversation between Tom Sawyer and his gang of robbers. This shows how the boys are influenced by society and believe they most follow exactly what is in the books, because that is the right way to do things. In today's society, ransoming someone is a huge crime and is totally unacceptable. In this book, Twain makes ransoming a humorous issue. In fact, throughout the novel Twain makes violence a humorous issue and does not act upon it as a serious issue. This goes with the whole theme of the novel that there is no moral. The way Huck has been raised, he has no clue that what Tom's gang wants to do is ludacrist, and should be totally unacceptable. Twain uses this conversation also to show the beginning of questioning throughout the novel. This will show a pattern of how Huck questions things to learn. Whatever Hucks hears, he believes is the right and acceptable answer. Tom's Gang of Robbers was a part of humorous violence in the novel, but Huck would run into real violence as well. Huck faked his death, and headed down the river, and he decides to go ashore and stays with a stranger family named the Grangerfords. The Grangerfords who were a very nice family, but a family that was obsessed with death. The Grangerfords and another family called the Sheperdson's have had a feud going on for 30 years, but no one knows why. "What's a feud?" "Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a feud is?" "Never heard of it before-tell me about it." "Well," says Buck, "a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; and then that other man's brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in-and by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't no more feud. But's it's kind of slow, and takes a long time." "Has this one been going on long Buck?" "Well I should reckon! It started thirty year ago, or som'ers along there. There was trouble 'bout something and then a lawsuit to settle it; and the suit went agin one of the men, so he up and shot the man that won the suit-which he would naturally do of course. Anybody would." (108) This conversation is a very important role in determining if this novel is

Antilegalization Of Marijuana Essays - Drug Control Law, Free Essays

Antilegalization Of Marijuana Essays - Drug Control Law, Free Essays Antilegalization Of Marijuana Dear Congressman, I am honored to be writing to you on such a significant topic of national concern. Average citizens are annoyed and just plain fatigued with the drugs and crime problems in America. These upright citizens, that contribute to the growth of American society, are being told that legalization is a reasonable alternative to dealing with these problems in their communities. Legalization of any drug is not a positive way to fight crime. In fact, there is no legitimate reason to legalize drugs. The Legalization of marijuana is the starting point of the pro-legalization of drugs movement. The issue of legalizing marijuana is truly a controversial one, and certainly one that requires a plethora of considerations at the top levels of the legislative branch. When considering the possibility of legalizing marijuana as a recreational drug, there are a number of concerns that come to mind. Is marijuana physically harmful to the user? Is marijuana an addictive drug? Does the use of marijuana lead to dependency situations? Does it act as gateway to more hazardous drugs? Does the notion of legalizing marijuana send an immoral, wrong message to the youth of America? Mr. Congressman, the answer to all these questions is YES. According to the DEA (1998), the supreme ruler of drug knowledge in America, there are over 10,000 scientific studies that prove marijuana is a harmful and addictive drug. Yet there is no reliable study that proves marijuana has any medical value. Marijuana is an unstable mixture of over 425 chemicals, which when smoked are converted to over thousands. Most of these are toxic, psychoactive chemicals which are unstudied and appear in uncontrolled strengths. Marijuana leads to many different consequences depending on the personality and general characteristics of the individual using the drug. These may include, but are not limited to: premature cancer, addiction, coordination and perception impairment, mental disorders, hostility and increased aggressiveness, general unconcern of life, memory loss, reproductive disabilities, and impairment to the immune system. Marijuana is currently up to 25 times more potent than it was in the 1960's, which makes the drug even more addictive. In 1994, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that marijuana should remain a Schedule I drug: highly addictive with no medical usefulness. Marijuana is a harmful substance. The use of marijuana for the purposes of intoxication leads to a number of serious health risks. Research has proven that marijuana damages short term memory, distorts perceptions, impairs complex motor skills, alters the heart rate, can lead to severe anxiety, and can cause paranoia and lethargy. A condition called Amotivational syndrome take places after chronic use. It is defined by Dr. Harry Avis (1996), professor of psychology as, a condition characterized by a lack of ambition or desire to succeed, presumed to be the result of smoking marijuana. As reported in The Medical Journal of Australia, Marijuana causes birth defects, fetal damage, lung cancer, long-term impairment of memory, schizophrenia, suppression of the immune system, and even leukemia in the children of marijuana-smoking mothers (Nahas & Latour, 1992). The National Institute on Drug Abuse (1996) reported that the chemicals found in marijuana smoke suppresses the neurons in the information-processing system of the hippocampus. This is the part of the brain that is crucial for learning, memory, and the integration of sensory experiences with emotions and motivation. Marijuana, should it be legalized, would ruin many Americans' abilities to learn, and would abruptly decay the development and progress of the American Society. Marijuana is dangerous, and it is more dangerous than it ever has been. The federal Drug Abuse Warning Network, or DAWN, claims that recent statistics show increases in the number of patients mentioning marijuana in hospital emergency rooms (The Marijuana Debate Goes On, 1998). Inexperienced users may suffer acute anxiety the first time they use it. This could be a direct result of the increase in potency of marijuana. Growers have access to the latest agricultural technologies and scientific methods which enable them to grow more powerful marijuana. Growers have become extremely sophisticated about developing varieties of marijuana with high concentrations of THC (Is Marijuana Dangerous? Is It Addictive?, 1995). THC, or Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol is one of the 400 chemicals in marijuana. It accounts for most of marijuana's psychoactive, or mind-altering, effects (Facts About Marijuana and Marijuana Abuse, 1996). The levels of THC found in the modern drug markets' marijuana are much higher than they have ever been. The concentration of THC will keep increasing in the future. This directly leads to more and stronger addictions to marijuana. One argument that the pro-legalization movement pleads is that