New edition of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ will have no ‘N’ word
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Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic by most any measure—T.S. Eliot called it a masterpiece, and Ernest Hemingway pronounced it the source of “all modern American literature.” Yet, for decades, it has been disappearing from grade school curricula across the country, relegated to optional reading lists, or banned outright, appearing again and again on lists of the nation’s most challenged books, and all for its repeated use of a single, singularly offensive word: “nigger.”
Twain himself defined a “classic” as “a book which people praise and don’t read.” Rather than see Twain’s most important work succumb to that fate, Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the “n” word (as well as the “in” word, “Injun”) by replacing it with the word “slave.”
“This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind,” said Gribben, speaking from his office at Auburn University at Montgomery, where he’s spent most of the past 20 years heading the English department. “Race matters in these books. It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century.”
Including the table of contents, the ‘slur’ appears 219 times in Finn. What finally convinced Gribben to turn his back on grad school training and academic tradition, in which allegiance to the author’s intent is sacrosanct, was his involvement with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read Alabama.
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If Americans are so stupid that they have not the ability to understand Twain in context, then maybe we should discontinue the teaching of reading. Apparently it is a worthless skill. The abolishment of reading will save future generations of children the horrid pain and tragedy of reading any offensive words. We can continue to censor speech and punish offender immediately. Ohoooo you said a bad word, I am going to tell mommy! We can even make up new “bad” words and use them to control the masses.
After all, wouldn’t the world be a better place if the only people who knew how to read were elite leaders that watch over us (perhaps politicians and priests)? They could decide what is important and read anything to us that we really need to know. They could tell us what to think.
The benefits of freedom of expression are far overshadowed by the pure horror that would surely strike the heart of every child who read the word nigger in the context of Huck Finn. So then, wouldn’t it be a better world if we abolished reading? And while we are at it, let’s abolish free speech. If we did, then it would be so much easier to control people. We could control what they say and eventually what they think. What a wonderful world it would be if all free thinkers were squished under the thumbs of people too ignorant to understand the context of words.
Listen you lint lickin shirt tucker, ANY word can become “bad” or “good” in its application. John Lennon (remember him from the Beatles) used the word nigger in a good way when he wrote “Woman is the nigger of the world.” Hear it at http://youtu.be/6P91_H690z4. Hear John explain what it means to Dick Cavett at http://youtu.be/S5lMxWWK218.
“If you define nigger as someone whose lifestyle is defined by others, whose opportunities are defined by others, whose role in society is defined by others, then good news! -you don`t have to be black to be a nigger in this society. Most of the people in America are niggers.”
– African American Chairman of the Black Caucus, Congressman Ron Dellums
Yes, I believe that the word nigger can be and has been used in harmful ways. I elect not to use it for harm. I also choose not to white wash history by editing historical documents (like Twain’s novel or Lennon’s song). Let the children read and so let them understand and learn from the faults (as well as the virtues) of our forefathers. That is the only way make a better world. That is the way that children can learn to use their words and deeds for good. If we ban words like nigger (used in a positive context such as Twain’s novels) then our children may not well learn the lessons of history and although they never use the word nigger, still they may go on to exploit others. If they need a word to champion their degradation of others, they will likely simply invent a new word.
Say nigger all you want, just don’t treat anyone as a nigger. Do this, and you will soon find that you have very little use for the word.
For the life of me I cannot understand what people are trying to do these days. George Orwell was absolutely correct though off by a few decades. By the times such idiots are through greats works of literature as well as history will no longer exist as they were originally intended. In 50 years or so this country will have no clue as to what it once was. I don’t mean to contradict some of my friends but this isn’t censorship, this is blasphemy of the worst kind. Censorship is where someone will not let you use words, this person chose to change the words. Why, I wonder does anyone need to rewrite anything Clemens ever wrote. You ca not improve on perfection. Its like trying to recut the Hope diamond.
See Mike I told you Alabamians were more stupid than Georgia folks.
Bill, you might have a point about that Alabama Georgia dumbness thing. However it’s still a toss-up.
Censorship and bullshit pure and simple. The word “nigger” (gasp-I said it) is part of the original story and should NOT be removed. Finally what an irony it is that all of this nonsense is coming out of ALABAMA!!!
It would be a horrible, horrible mistake.
Clemens uses words to actually transport you to that place and time. What person cannot picture the mighty Mississippi, the Riverboats, that raft when they went out?
Mark Twain has created a mental tapestry that is finely crafted. Sure you can take out a few threads to make it smaller, change a few to make it blander.
But why do that at all? Why change this masterpiece, this great American novel, that allows ones mind to actually be in south in the 1800’s??
So, let me just get this straight. It’s ok for them to read the words fuck, cunt, shit, and god damn, but heaven forbid they hear the word nigger in it’s historical context.
It’s censorship. The original text should be preserved given the venacular of Clemens’ era. One can’t impose today’s culture on yesterdays.
People who take issue with the use of the “n” word in Huck Finn have either not read it, or have read it and don’t understand it. Huck Finn, narrated in the first person by the character of the same name is speaking as any boy who grew up in Missouri at mid nineteenth century would have. Maybe the whole work needs to be re-edited to bring Finn’s vernacular in line with the way a boy in Missouri would speak in the early 21st Century. Why stop there? Mr. Clemons is rolling in his grave.
humph! “spinner Twain”. I agree with the lawyer!
I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
“All right, then, I’ll GO to hell.”
It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn’t. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.
–The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ch. 31
After reading that many years ago, I decided that I would seek to eradicate any trace of social prejudice of any kind from my soul, and was made a better person for it.
I think that’s incredibly wrong! Like the ‘confederate history’ being published for school children right now. It’s shockingly wrong. The author is the author. Rewrite Clemens?