Throughout the week, the prosecution and defense argued to passionately about Mark Twain's intent when he wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The case revolved around the question, "Was Mark Twain Racist?" Both sides crafted arguements to convince the jury of the right verdict. They had to write a opening and closing statement, rehearse with the witnesses and create questions for the cross examination. All this preparation was in hopes that their desired verdict would be achieved.
As the literary expert, my role was to know the various opinions on Huck Finn and find publications that supported that Mark Twain was racist. This was not an easy task as most believed that he was innocent. I had to resort to using essays and exerpts from various novels. During my questioning, we used a lot of passages and examples from these publications. I feel if we had explained what the texts meant a little better, it would be easier for the jury to understand the matter that we were discussing. Many of the passages were difficult to understand and some need to be read a couple of times to get the full meaning of it. I found myself researching and almost agreeing with the defense. It could get difficult because I knew that my job was to convict Mark Twain of being racist.
The verdict was definetly a surprise to me. I knew that the defense had a strong case too but I felt that the prosecution carried the trial through very professionally. I feel as if some of the jury members may have been a little biased in the book. They had prior knowledge about the book and their opinions may have be formed before the trial even occured. I thought that we had done a good job attempting to convince that jury that Mark Twain was racist. Listening to the lawyers questioning the defenses' witnesses, they sounded very knownledgeable and knew when to push a point and when to leave it. As I listened to the jury deliberate, I noticed that they had captured some of the imporant points discussed but they had a hard time using that evidence to form an opinion. The reason for this could be that they did not have enough time or that they didn't fully understand the trial, and their decision was reflected this.
