British University Issues ‘Trigger Warning’ For Mark Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn’

Lee Brown at the New York Post reports on a Brit University placing a “Trigger Warning” On Mark Twain’s great novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

A British university has issued a “trigger warning” on Mark Twain’s literary classic “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” because of supposed “problematic” violence and language.

Exeter University warned students that the 1884 novel — widely deemed one of the great American novels — is “classic but contentious,” according to The Times of London.

Twain’s masterpiece “is problematic in a number of ways, not least because of Huck’s use of the N-word throughout the novel,” students in the American literature module were warned. 

“Please be aware that this novel also features scenes of murder, violence and child abuse,” the warning reportedly adds.

Exeter University warned that the 1884 novel “is problematic in a number of ways,” including its use of the N-word as well as “scenes of murder, violence and child abuse.”

Twain’s tale of 13-year-old Huck Finn’s travels down the Mississippi River with an escaped slave named Jim has for generations been taught as a condemnation of the racist values of the time.

“It’s the best book we’ve had,” Ernest Hemingway once said of it. “All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before.”

It is also a pioneering work for Twain’s use of colloquial dialect, making it a timeless snapshot of the Antebellum South.

However, his reliance on the era’s racially charged language — including the N-word, which appears 219 times — has long sparked controversy. 

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University gives 'trigger warning' for 'Huckleberry Finn' (nypost.com)