Censored Version of Huck Finn

[Twilight Wolf]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=132663590

Mark Twain wrote that "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." A new edition of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" will try to find out if that holds true by replacing the N-word with "slave" in an effort not to offend readers.

Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who is working with NewSouth Books in Alabama to publish a combined volume of the books, said the N-word appears 219 times in "Huck Finn" and four times in "Tom Sawyer." He said the word puts the books in danger of joining the list of literary classics that Twain once humorously defined as those "which people praise and don't read."

"It's such a shame that one word should be a barrier between a marvelous reading experience and a lot of readers," Gribben said.

Yet Twain was particular about his words. His letter in 1888 about the right word and the almost right one was "the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

The book isn't scheduled to be published until February, at a mere 7,500 copies, but Gribben has already received a flood of hateful e-mail accusing him of desecrating the novels. He said the e-mails prove the word makes people uncomfortable.

"Not one of them mentions the word. They dance around it," he said.

Another Twain scholar, professor Stephen Railton at the University of Virginia, said Gribben was well respected, but called the new version "a terrible idea."

The language depicts America's past, Railton said, and the revised book was not being true to the period in which Twain was writing. Railton has an unaltered version of "Huck Finn" coming out later this year that includes context for schools to explore racism and slavery in the book.

"If we can't do that in the classroom, we can't do that anywhere," he said.

He said Gribben was not the first to alter "Huck Finn." John Wallace, a teacher at the Mark Twain Intermediate School in northern Virginia, published a version of "Huck Finn" about 20 years ago that used "slave" rather than the N-word.

"His book had no traction," Railton said.

Gribben, a 69-year-old English professor at Auburn University Montgomery, said he would have opposed the change for much of his career, but he began using "slave" during public readings and found audiences more accepting.

He decided to pursue the revised edition after middle school and high school teachers lamented they could no longer assign the books.

Some parents and students have called for the removal of "Huck Finn" from reading lists for more than a half century. In 1957, the New York City Board of Education removed the book from the approved textbook lists of elementary and junior high schools, but it could be taught in high school and bought for school libraries.

In 1998, parents in Tempe, Ariz., sued the local high school over the book's inclusion on a required reading list. The case went as far as a federal appeals court; the parents lost.

Published in the U.S. in 1885, "Huck Finn" is the fourth most banned book in schools, according to "Banned in the U.S.A." by Herbert N. Foerstal, a retired college librarian who has written several books on First Amendment issues.

Gribben conceded the edited text loses some of the caustic sting but said: "I want to provide an option for teachers and other people not comfortable with 219 instances of that word."

In addition to replacing the N-word, Gribben changes the villain in "Tom Sawyer" from "Injun Joe" to "Indian Joe" and "half-breed" becomes "half-blood."

Gribben knows he won't change the minds of his critics, but he's eager to see how the book will be received by schools rather than university scholars.

"We'll just let the readers decide," he said.

While I do like these works and feel that their proliferation is great, the censorship kind of defeats the purpose of the book. Instead of creating censored versions of these, the scholars should be lobbying for anti-censorship laws, in my opinion. What are your guys thoughts? Does the censorship make the book acceptable to teach? Should it be censored? Should it even be taught?

[Beh]

I see no problem with using any words as long as no hate is intended. Printing the word "nigger" in a book that was written more than 125 years ago shouldn't offend anyone. The only place where I would see relevance to this if they kept it uncensored in versions of the book marketed towards children. Most Americans are probably familiar with the Great Illustrated Classics series (not sure about they're popularity in other countries) but they're adaptations of classic novels with large print and an illustration every other page. I know for a fact the word "nigger" is never used in the Tom Sawyer version there, but I've never read the Huckleberry Finn version. It's in my little brother's 6th grade classroom so I doubt it.

When they're being marketed at children like that then it should be censored, in my opinion. When it's the full novel except replacing just the language that the publisher finds unsavory then that becomes over-censorship in my mind.

[hisak]

That's dumb. Removes a huge amount of context and an important part of the story. Just use it as a way to teach kids how offensive it is.



Oh shit she's a gold digger, just thought you should know, slave.

Fuck them west coast slaves, cuz in B-more we aim to hit a slave.


Okay, those aren't good examples since they're not aimed at children, but you get the idea.

[Geneaux486]

Second time I read this book was in my high school english class.  Our teacher simply made the frequent use of the word the subject of one of many talking points, gave us context, etc.  I mean that's kind of the point of reading a literary work as a class, to learn from it in addition to absorbing it.  

[DarkLink]

Generations of Americans have read this story as children and grown up just fine. What makes them think the 21st century generation is any different?

[Bidet to you sir]

NO WE MUST PURGE THE FOUL LANGUAGE, FUCK HISTORICAL CONTEXT!!!!

[Big Tater]

i mean, if it offends you, just don't read it

[Bidet to you sir]

BURN THEM, BURN ALL THE BOOKS WITH THIS RACIST FILTH INSIDE IT.

[Deku]

It's ludicrous to censor the book, and here are a couple reasons why:

1.  History is not truly history if we present only a softened (i.e., idyllic) picture of the past and refuse to talk about all the warts, so to speak.  In other words, such a measure diminishes the racial antipathy of the period and replaces it with anachronism.  From an educator's perspective, historical racial language provides fertile ground for important discussions about race (obviously), class, equality/inequality, constructs of "whiteness," nineteenth-century society, the origins of the Civil War, etc.  Granted, you can still have good conversations with a word like "slave" but it loses its edge - an important social and cultural dimension of the period.   

2.  One of the reasons cited for censoring the book is to increase the readership by removing racist language.  I'm doubtful, however, that this would actually increase readership.  Huck Finn is a classic that most people know something about but have probably not read it in its entirety (as Twain himself pointed out).  We live in a culture where informed readers are becoming rarer by the minute - look at the collapsing newspaper business, for example - and I would venture that most people just aren't interested in taking large chunks out of their days to read classic literature, with or without offensive language. 

So, will American civilization crumble to pieces as a result of this revision?  Of course not.  There will continue to be versions of the book published that preserve the dreaded word, perhaps simply because of the controversy it sparks.  Nevertheless, it's regrettable that we feel a need - or even a right -  to whitewash our history with more acceptable phrases/words.  Certainly we wouldn't do that to Frederick Douglass' or Harriet Jacobs' immensely important slave narratives - both of which include numerous "N-words" - would we? 

(PS: Hello fellow Hylians!  Long time, no see.  As you can see, I'm still around just not as active as I once was.)

[Bidet to you sir]

Just want to point out, the newspaper readership thing is blamed on the internet, it's why the times now has their website as a pay-site, their website was losing them money.

People are still reading newspapers, they just do it in a much easier format to get a hold of, and cheaper.

[Deku]

That's true to some extent.  More people are turning to the internet for news (especially young people), but newspaper readership has declined - either online or in print - from 43% in 2006 to 39% in 2008.  Apparently internet readership is growing, but not rapidly enough to offset the collapsing print readership.

Source: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1133/decline-print-newspapers-increased-online-news February 2009

[Bidet to you sir]

Interesting find, but I would also like to point out that a decline in newspaper readership doesn't really have a bearing on fiction and whether we have an informed readership when it comes to literature.

Although Michael steele clearly isn't a member of an informed readership..

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13puHCRmM5c" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13puHCRmM5c</a>

[Deku]

Steele must really love that book.    He should have spared himself the embarrassment and joined his other fellow panelists in giving a shameless partisan plug for some recent Republican's memoirs. 

[Bidet to you sir]

I mean I haven't read war and peace, and a tale of two cities is actually the only of the major dickens works I haven't read (probably should get around to it)
But I know what lines are from which book!