January 5, 2011
-
Removing the N-Word From Huckleberry Finn
A new edition of Huckleberry Finn will be published without the use of the n-word.
The n-word will be replaced with the word “slave.”
The thinking is it will make it so the book can be read by younger kids. Plus it will help fight the perception the book is prejudiced. Here is the link: Link
Do you think the n-word should be removed from Huckleberry Finn?
Comments (184)
I can understand them wanting to make it more appropriate for children… but I think that it is clear in the book that the term is not a positive one. I don’t think it would encourage children to use it. I mean, it’s an obviously offensive term. But when you think about how it’s used in modern rap anyway… *shrug* They’d get a better perspective of the word in Huckleberry Finn than they would from 50 Cent.
No, I do not. Huckleberry Finn is a picture of mid-19th century America, and we should treat it as such. Nigger was a commonly used word by white people back then, and it should be left in as a representation of our history, even if we aren’t proud of it.
Let’s draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa while were at it.
As if literature wasn’t boring enough already, now they’re taking out all the swears. The swear words are what make novels readable.
So now we rewrite major, classic pieces of literature to make them more PC? Why not just burn the book and get it over with? If they want kids to read it, they can explain that component of it, as I do to my students, who are perfectly capable of understanding it. This is appalling.
@quasarglow - Exactly. Maybe David should wear pants, or just take off that objectionable part of his anatomy so kids can look at the statue.
@Sunrise_Hope_Joy - That was a much better example than mine, haha. exactlyyy!
Leave the books alone, and discuss how words that were once considered acceptable have come to be considered unacceptable., and why.
@TheThinkingPerson - @Sunrise_Hope_Joy - Agree, the integrity of the original work should be maintained.
WHATISTHIS
no. the word is there for a reason! twain was not a racist, he was merely writing a book that reflected the atmosphere of his time. plus, slavery had been abolished by the time this book was published.
I read this book in 6th grade.
Editing a classic author’s books should be a crime.
@quasarglow - Exactly.
I think! – We should take all of the classical books and remove ANYTHING offensive… While we’re at it, let’s open up some new ones and find everything that also might be offensive… What’s that you say? Everyone is offended by something else, and finding what’s offensive might be a problem? Damn… that settles it, book burning is the only way to go.
*cough*
I hate it when they alter an authors work without their permission. In my opinion we should not be altering old literature and if we do we should not try to attach the original authors name to it.
… is it bad that I have yet to read Huck Finn, and I’m a senior in college?
Wow why dont we just get rid of all the original works. Im sure Mark Twain will be so happy
I think they should take the n word out of tea party literature.
America über alles!
@quasarglow - true!!!
@tarynhulse - agreed!!!!
@puella_sapiens216 - LOL we cant all read all the classics AND get through life AND read our own personal favourites.
I think the fact that you won’t use the word “nigger” is kind of interesting, given the context and the question.
Absolutely not.
You mean the word Noir Americaines were called by Blanc Americaines?What word was that again? Negro from the Spaniard’s language?
No – in fact, that word allows for a great classroom discussion about the origin and impact of racial and ethnic slurs, as well as conversations about censorship, and what is appropriate in writing, or in a certain time period, and what is appropriate in everyday life…I could go on.
It’s better to leave it and discuss it than to change it and, metaphorically speaking, close the book – pun intended.
As an English major I am appalled that they would do this. The book makes it clear that n word is derogatory and it helps show the times of the book. Back then the word was disgustingly common. The book is not condoning the use of the word at all so now we suddenly have to shield our children from even more bullshit? How about teaching our children that the word is wrong!
@happylittleliar - Ahh now I remember why I didn’t read it! – we ‘had’ to read it in my 11th grade American Lit class (it sucked massively) but I instead read Crime and Punishment (I had just started the book at the time) and ignored Huck Finn. Somehow I still passed the quizzes and tests on Huck Finn too
Twain used the word for a reason.
@quasarglow - completly agree. twain wrote about the time, he wrote about society and at that time, the n word was a major part of society. it was during one of the most important periods in america’s history and should not be erased. we can’t pretend that nothing bad has ever happened even if it is for children. huck fin is not a book to be read by small children. they can’t possibly understand the true juxtaposition between the river and the land, they can’t understand the plot or how it really deals with what happened. it should remain as is. this is just ridiculous. america needs to stop focus on being so ‘politically correct’ and just be honest. people need to stop being so sensitive.
Not. Come to think of it having your work edited!
Of course, and all references to sex should be expunged from the Old Testament,all f-bombs removed from anything faintly considered “classic literature” and g-rated versions of Lawrence and Salinger offered for impressionable minds.
@puella_sapiens216 - I think most people dont read most ‘classics’ anyway because the language can be harder, the books were bigger, and they get used in shos like the simpsons so we get the general idea hahah
That’s so absurd. Considering the fact that children these days see worse things and listen to awful words on TV and the media – a sheltered life is hard to come by now. Whats the point?
@happylittleliar - … or, there could be better selections to read in general, lol. Although, I can’t really think of any good American literature besides “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, and it’s probably considered too “depressing” for teachers’ tastes lol.
censorship hidden under a different pretense. *facepalm*
@quasarglow - lol, I’d say we should draw eyebrows.
@RockstarJuiceNStarburst - Exactly. We remove this word from a classic novel because it’s offensive to some, while some big star rapper throws it out there like his everyday trash. That makes no sense. Who the hell is publishing this? I’ll make sure not to buy from them. ARGH
you can’t censor mark twain. well, you can but you shouldn’t be able to. huck finn is a classic written in a time where that was acceptable to say. you wouldn’t censor the bible for saying anything “unacceptable” now, why any other book written in the past?
Removing the n-word from a classic removes an opportunity to tell students how the word was commonly used in that era and why it is offensive. It removes an opportunity to teach.
@Winsa - I believe you win the thread.
@Winsa - Agreed
OP:This is ridiculous. That word was used in that specific time period and people nowadays have to get over this and PC. It’s all bullshit really. What are we going to do to anything we find offensive or don’t like? They are a product of their times. Leave it alone. Purely ridiculous.People really need to get over themselves.
People are way too sensitive now.
Yeah, next they can rewrite Call of the Wild to say the dogs were just playful and energetic to apease Peta. PC sucks.
In 1983, we bought a house in a Texas town. The elderly couple next door invited us to visit and welcomed us to the street. They were nice folks and in their 80′s. During our visit, someone knocked at the door. Mr. M glanced at his watch and asked me to let in his “nigger”. I almost fainted. When I was a kid, using that word didn’t just earn punishment- you had to wear the shame of saying it after the sting from the spanking wore off. Anyway, I slowly opened the door, and… there was a black man the same age as Mr and Mrs M. He smiled and introduced himself as thier “nigger”. The three of them were best friends and had spent thier whole lives together. He visited three times a week to help clean the house and had been doing it all his life. He and Mrs M went to work right away. To them it was just a fact, not a curse. In a half hour or so the cleaning was done and the five of us had tea and cake together while they told us about thier lives. One of the most enlightening afternoons of my life.
Nope.
It’s a piece of literature I missed but reading through the comments I think I can see the word should not be removed. Man’s inhumanity to man. If we couldn’t learn from the past there would be no sense in glossing it over anyway.
@TheSutraDude - It’s actually good. I enjoyed reading it and I can’t say that for most of the books I had to endure reading in high school and middle school. I think I liked it better than the Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
It’s a shame, it seems that fame for this book has induced the downfall of its being truly read.
This is a piece of literature, not a pop song to be edited and filtered for a Kidz Bop cd.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
@Sunrise_Hope_Joy - They did do stuff like that (censoring great works of art.) If I’m not mistaken, everyone in the Sistine Chapel was nude, originally.
But honestly? No on reads Huck Finn until about 11 or 12 anyway. You’ve already heard the word “nigger” by then. Censoring the book is completely unnecessary.
@puella_sapiens216 - It’s not bad. I “read” it in middle school. Never paid attention. No idea what happens, except he was Tom Sawyer’s friend and he ran away with “Nigger Jim.” or Jack. Something like that.
I really dislike Mark Twain, but I am fairly certain that one of the primary reasons for his popularity is his accurate representation of his society’s vernacular. You start taking out words that he put there for a reason and you distort the accuracy and power of his writing, as well as pollute a piece of literature by ignoring the intentions of the author.
i think it’s a terrible idea. they’re messing with a classic. they’re ignoring the meaning of the word in the context of the novel
no, i don’t think it should be changed. granted, it is safer for today’s new generation to read, however, that’s the same as changing a writer’s work. i think that no matter how dark and ugly the N word is, it reflects the time of the story and in a way, the history. today’s new generation should be taught about the difference and the existence of such dark times, instead of changing the work to seem nicer and proper.
That’s not right. That just makes the N word seem worse that it already is, considering it’s already pretty bad. It’s like, the kids that read this and commonly refer to their friends like that are gonna be calling them ‘slave’ instead.
“Yo Slave, how you doin’?”
It shows the word is not right, but literature shouldn’t be tampered with.
What a douche! Censor more please?!?
@quasarglow - Yeah that was my train of thought too.
Fuck off stupid politically correct sons of bitches. Seriously.
In no uncertain terms should a jot be changed. I wonder where we would be if we took out every “offensive” situation in all books. What is next “Gone with the Wind”, “The Scarlet Letter”, the “Bible”? It seems they have already banned “Song of the South” which was one of my favorite movies.
you’re basically rewriting the book by taking that book out. i read it junior year of high school and even with the typical immature kids in there, no one even questioned that word or laughed because we all obviously know why it’s in there and how effective it is in getting twain’s story and message across.
shit, i’m surprised these people don’t find the word ‘slave’ offensive. smh.
@Rob_of_the_Sky - This. Plus the pictures.
@Sunrise_Hope_Joy - Hahaha!
I never read the book, but yes I think the word should be removed from the book.
@TheSutraDude - Mark Twain is wonderful, so witty, and the pictures he painted of his life as a child are really vivid. It’s a great book.
@Sunrise_Hope_Joy - OMG am I the only one on the planet who hasn’t read this? It’s not easy being me. Thank you. Maybe I’ll read it someday.
@TheSutraDude - LOL well I’m an English teacher, I’m supposed to read things like this for work.
I think you’ll like it though.
@ShimmerBodyCream - Oh yeah, I miss pictures in my literature. I wanna see boobs, dammit!
I find that word disgusting and taught my children to never utter it, but I don’t think it should be removed from classic literature. Twain had a gift for writing in the vernacular, and gives us a glimpse into life at that time in history – always a teachable moment when words like that come up. Even schools have such stupid double standards. I once taught in a school that, in all the classroom copies of “Huck Finn”, some previous teacher had taken the time to black out every “n” word. Duh…the kids are only gonna ask what that word is, and the teacher’s gonna have to explain it anyway. Another school forbid the showing of “Amazing Grace”, the story of England’s ending of their own slave trade, and the writing of the song “Amazing Grace” – wonderful story - because it contained the “n” word. History is history, no matter how unpalatable. Our kids need to learn why that word is so wrong and disgusting. They have no concept today of how black people used to be treated – they have never been around it.
However, I too am stymied why some African Americans use that word casually when referring to each other – some, not all – I had a close friend who did that, and it puzzled me why something so insulting to them if used by a white person would be okay if they used it with each other. Other black friends felt as we did – they would never, ever utter that word.
Eh. I think the word should stay. The use of the word was characteristic of the time frame. Just how I hate how music is censored, I don’t think classic literary art should be censored either.
ugh…
Why does everything need to be so politically correct? we’re not going to please everyone. You start taking out offensive things now, you’re eventually going to be rewriting books entirely.
i think that its facsist. doesn’t this smack a little of rewriting history that we find casts us in an unfavorable light? the word Nigger was colloquial speech for the time and as such is a part of history, apart from being a part of the novel.
i don’t understand the whole argument behind making it ok for “the kids” i had really thought that we were past censoring the novels our children read, at least in this fashion.
i get that perhaps they don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, meaning that this is obviously important literature and it shouldnt be excluded for the sake of an objectionable word.
so have we decided at what age and on what terms we are going to allow are kids to hear the word Nigger, and not just hear it in its modern usage, but understand the entymology of it? maybe we can add it in with the sex talk, that is if we’re still allowed that minor indescretion.
tl;dr wtf! people are crazy, i disagree with this idea!
ts really Great to see this site.Give us more interesting and informative stuff.keep doing work like this for the further also..Thanks Buddy.
Logo jpeg | Logo psd | Logo bmp
me and my daughter(who’s 9) watched to kill a mockingbird 2 nights ago. In it Atticus is of course called a nlover. Kenna asked I told her how that’s what they were called back then…I also pointed out how horribly they were treated with no rights. Sadly I didn’t have to point this out as she had already picked up on it. I viewed it as a learning experience for her…how can we possibly move forward if we don’t know our history? I don’t know that taking the N word out of huck finn is going to really fix anything. My kids know this is not an ok word to use but like other words they also know that it sadly gets used.
Yes, let’s rewrite our history in the name of political correctness. That isn’t a slippery slope or anything ….
@Winsa - Your logic is undeniable.
=D win.
I think this is absolutely ridiculous.
i just don’t understand why everything has to be changed. it’s a part of history. it’s put in the book to show it being used negatively. children should be able to read the book regardless of what word is in there. you hear rappers saying that kind of thing in a nonchalant way. i just don’t understand why todays society is such a bunch of whiny little children that have to have everything changed to make it ‘acceptable’ for gods sakes, i used to sit indian style on the floor, now i have to sit cross legged. i used to go home for christmas holidays, now i go home for winter break and i get in trouble at work for saying anything about christmas to customers, and customers get mad at me because i don’t wish them a happy holidays. people get their pants in a bunch because the word god is used in the pledge. is this what this country has come to? it’s called live and let live. i don’t see why anything has to be censored in a book that has been around and been used for ages. it shows us how history has progressed. if i hear someone talking about kwanzaa i don’t go screeching about how ‘i don’t celebrate that holiday and how dare you think so’ i just nod and smile, because it’s just WORDS PEOPLE. get the fucking hell over it.
*starts to sing “what’s this?” from nightmare b4 x-mas*
hmm, i don’t think they should have changed it… but i guess i understand since they want younger kids to read it. like someone commented earlier “not something to be proud of but nonetheless it’s part of our history.”
It should not be changed and is a crime against literature and Mark Twain.
@TheThinkingPerson - I totally agree. No need for me to reiterate.
I think it will just erase prejudice from history instead. Prejudice still will exist.
There’s some great answers here but I’m seein’ a whole lot of white faces. What do black and African-American Xangans have to say? Just wondering.
no.
Many old books say “nigger.” It’s an unfortunate word, but people used it. By taking it out of books, they are misrepresenting the setting of the book and misrepresenting the authors thoughts.
Editing books to make them more politically correct is never ok. Actually, I can’t think of a good reason to edit a book after it’s already been published- unless the author is adding more passages to it (Stephen King did this with the Dark Tower series and it always frustrates me when I accidentally buy an old edition of one of those books).
@Winsa - win.
Nigger Jim does not approve. Nor does Uncle Tom.
You know, I’ve never read that book. I’ve read Tom Sawyer but not Huck Finn. I should put that one my To Read list on Goodreads. I can’t say if the change would make sense, not having read the book, but I suspect that it would probably not be a good idea, much as I despise the word.
It removes several of the functions of literature: to understand other cultures and other times, to understand our own history, to understand how we got where we are, to understand the influences that have cause others to be who and what they are. I’m sure every undertaking of revisionism was justified in some way.
While i disagree heavily with the use of that word, I believe that removing it from a book would be quite silly. When we read it we were given the option to either say the word or ignore it. It opened up talks about the time period the book was set in and how the times have changed.
Also, lets be honest, “slave” is really no better, and last I checked he wasn’t actually a slave.
Mark Twain has to be spinning circles in his grave right now….
@quasarglow - Or put eyebrows on the Mona Lisa. We don’t want kids thinking it’s okay to shave off your eyebrows! Scandalous!
Maybe they should just remove Huck Finn from schools altogether… because it’s an awful book from an awful author. American classic my ass!
My son had to read this book for his AP English class over the summer and then write a thesis paper. Cliff notes where not allowed to be used and must be the original version read.
The entire time he read this book all that he did was complain about the bad grammar and use of “nigger” through out the book.
We explained that was just how it was during that era of time and people thought nothing of it.
Once school started and they began discussing in length and giving different point of views there was a new understanding of what the book really was about.
I have never actually read the book but I do not believe it should be changed. Do not see “children” going out of their way just to get this book to read for fun anyhow.
This is an important part of American literature.
Nope. That’s what the author wrote, so that’s what they should print.
Let classic remain classic!
The world has changed the meanings of so many words like Bugging, gay etc. If someone is considered to be a racist on calling a black person NEGRO they should consider their motives behind using term, I don’t think calling someone by that name for the purpose of identification has any harm.
I think if you are too young to handle the N-word in context, you are probably too young to appreciate the book.
@puella_sapiens216 - Yes. You should go to your local library and immediately read it now!
No way!
No, it should not be. It’s ridiculous that it should be done. In our time and generation: we’ve heard worse. The “N” word is significant to that time in the past, it’s linked to so many prejudices and struggles. Also the books makes it clear that it’s not exactly the nicest word to describe the slaves of that time. Why would you want to disrupt a classic?
It’s impossible to expect the whole world to stop using the word “nigger” or any variation of it. The only thing that can be done about it is to take the power away from it by making it an ordinary word. In a sense, many black people have done that, using it as a term along the lines of “bro” being used in the 90′s. Being white, I come across this strange barrier though. I feel comfortable calling my “people,” guys or girls, black or white or asian, who cares!!, my niggas. It feels strange writing about it now because it’s out of context, and I almost feel taboo about it but not quite. But in perfectly casual language, I’ve even said it around black people I haven’t met before, without any hesitation or fear behind it. Maybe one day it will get me smacked (as some yet not all of my black friends seem to think,) and if it does, I’ll acknowledge that as the decision of the individual who hits me, not as a fault of my own, “caused” by my choice of words, which have no ill intentions.
Also, on a less personal note, I think removing the word from the book will completely distort the time period in which the book was written, for whose audience it was intended.
Anyway, if I offended anyone, it wasn’t my intention, and it’s your choice to be offended, so YOU deal with it. But I still love you, whoever you may be.
The book is prejudiced.
That’s the point.
/Fail
Put black boxes over the vag and nipples in Manet’s paintings. Why do we insult our youth so bad? It detracts from the progression our country has made… infuriating. Why don’t we re-write history and say that whites were fair to blacks in the 1800s.
those goddamn niggers
It’s a good excuse, but no…they shouldn’t.
yeah bc THAT will teach students. :/ so freakin stupid. Keep books how they were written.
“Plus it will help fight the perception the book is prejudiced.”
The only people who think the book is prejudiced are assholes who don’t understand Twain, his mode of writing and the historical context with which it’s written. Caving in to the whims of an uneducated butthurt few and bastardizing a work of classic americana is censorship.
A Classic is a classic for those exact reasons, they bring back with them a sense of the time they were written in. Don’t “fix” something that isn’t broke.
I dont see why they should edit the book. Its a classic and if parents or schools dont want their kids reading it, then its simple, DONT HAVE THE BOOK AT THE SCHOOL! I read the book in highschool and it was a classic. Changing it is slapping mark twain in the face. Everyone said that Mark Twain was an amazing writer. Well how amazing is his work if we go changing it? I say they should leave his literature alone. Its a classic. And should stay the way it was when he finished writing it.
When I read the n word as a youth, I was pretty confused. Yet, I don’t think they should remove it because it is a classic. It’s almost like besmirching every single original work out there.
You cant even just say “Nigger” in this blog.
hell naw! yous can’t remove da N-word from a piece o’ classic lit’ure. That ain’t right.
This is just stupid, so many people have already said what i would have. Why would you change a book just to make it more appealing to everyone when its supposed to tell a story of the times? Sounds like another book i know of that this has happened to………….
I read stories like Huck Finn & Uncle Remus to my kids, even the young ones, & don’t change the words. They are smart enough to understand context, even when it’s not used as an insult. I think it’s another instance of the stupidity of pc group think.
I do not think the word needs to be removed. I read huck fin when i was in the 6th grade, i didn’t start running around calling people the n word. I was raised better then that. My mother and father told me what it ment, and that it was a bad thing to say. So i didn’t. Changing the words of the book won’t make the word go away.
The censorship of any word, is the crippling of all words.
I think this book is a classic and it should be left alone. I mean sure the book is racial and everything but what’s not directed towards race these days? I say leave it alone..
@RockstarJuiceNStarburst - THIS
This book is a great reflection of the culture of that time. That word was used to refer to slaves then. Children will hear that word anyway with rappers etc. so really, it’s as ridiculous as removing Katy Perry from that Sesame Street episode because of her outfit. (Because, you know, no one dresses like that at the park, or walking down the street, so kids are never exposed to it anyway!)
All that aside, I hope to be a writer one day, and I would be horrified if I learned someone was making such a major change! I don’t think Mark Twain would approve.
To quote Ray Bradbury himself in his coda of Fahrenheit 451:
“
About two
years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me
how much
she enjoyed my experiment in space mythology,
The Martian Chronicles.
But,
she added, wouldn’t it be a good idea, this late in time, to
rewrite the book inserting more women’s characters
and roles?
A few years before that I got a certain amount
of mail concerning the same Martian book complaining that the blacks
in the book were Uncle Toms and why didn’t I “do them over”?
Along about then came a note
from a Southern white suggesting that I was prejudiced in favor
of the blacks and the
entire story should be dropped.
Two weeks ago my mountain of mail delivered
forth a pipsqueak mouse of a letter from a well-known publishing house
that wanted to reprint my story “The Fog Horn” in a high school reader.
In my story, I had described a lighthouse
as having, late at night, an illumination coming from it that was a “God
light.” Looking up at it from the viewpoint of any sea-creature one would
have felt that one was in “the Presence.”
The editors had deleted “God-Light” and “in
the Presence.”
Some five years back, the editors
of yet another anthology for school readers put together a volume
with some
400 (count ‘em) short stories in it. How do you cram 400 short stories
by Twain, Irving, Poe, Maupassant and Bierce into one book?
Simplicity itself. Skin, debone,
demarrow, scarify, melt, render down and destroy. Every adjective
that counted,
every verb that moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito
– out! Every simile that would have made a sub-moron’s mouth twitch -
gone! Any aside that explained the two-bit philosophy of a first-rate
writer – lost!
Every story, slenderized, starved,
bluepenciled, leeched and bled white, resembled every other story.
Twain read like
Poe read like Shakespeare read like Dostoevsky read like – in the finale
– Edgar Guest. Every word of more than three syllables had been razored.
Every image that demanded so much as one instant’s attention – shot dead.
Do you begin to get the damned
and incredible picture?
How did I react to all of the
above?
By “firing” the whole lot.
By sending them rejection slips
to each and every one.
By ticketing the assembly of
idiots to the far reaches of hell.
The point is obvious. There
is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of
people running about
with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish /
Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist,
Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feel it has the will,
the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit
editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain
porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck
of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery
rhyme.
Fire-Captain Beatty, in my
novel Fahrenheit
451, described how the books were burned first by the minorities,
each ripping a page or a paragraph from the book, then that, until
the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the library
closed forever.
“Shut the door, they’re coming through the
window, shut the window, they’re coming through the door,” are the words
to an old song. They fit my lifestyle with newly arriving butcher/censors
every month. Only six months ago, I discovered that, over the years,
some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating
the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the
novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with the censorship
and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony.
Judy-Lynn Del Rey, one of the new Ballantine editors, is having the entire
book reset and republished this summer with all the damns and hells back
in place.
A final test for old Job II
here: I sent a play, Leviathan 99, off to a university
theater a month ago. My play is based on the “Moby Dick” mythology,
dedicated to Melville, and concerns a rocket crew and a blind
space captain who venture forth
to encounter a Great White Comet and destroy the destroyer. My drama
premiers as an opera in Paris this autumn. But, for now, the university
wrote back that they hardly dared to my play – it had no women in it!
And the ERA ladies on campus would descend with baseball bats if the
drama department even tried!
Grinding my bicuspids into
powder, I suggested that would mean, from now on, no more productions
of Boys in the Band (no
women), or The Women (no men), Or, counting heads, make and female,
a good lot of Shakespeare that would never be seen again, especially
if you count line and find that all the good stuff went to the males!
I wrote back maybe they should
do my play one week, and The Women the next. They probably thought I was
joking, and I’m not sure that I wasn’t.
For it is a mad world and it will get madder
if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin,
nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite,
simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the
playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But
the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights
and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not
like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin
stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors
find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmild teeth, let them eat
stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. If the
Chicano intellectuals wish to re-cut my “Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” so
it shapes “Zoot,” may the belt unravel and the pants fall.
For, let’s face it, digression
is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante,
Milton or Hamlet’s
father’s ghost and what stays is dry bones. Laurence Sterne said it once:
Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading!
Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page.
Restore them to the writer – he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them
all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.
In sum, do not insult me with
the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-deflations you plan
for my works. I need
my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs
to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted,
to become a non-book.
All you umpires, back to the
bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It’s my game. I pitch,
I hit, I catch. I run the bases.
At sunset I’ve won or lost. At sunrise, I’m out again, giving it the
old try.
And no one can help me. Not
even you.”
And I think he rather sufficiently – if not succinctly – sums up the issue.
Umm… no. Just… no.
NO. I saw this on the news yesterday and it made me ridiculously mad. Toning down a representation of history only serves to tone down how wrong that particular detail about history is. I’m sorry, but I’m just not down with censorship.
That book’s probably not going to be fully understood by younger kids that read it…why censor it for them?
wtf, you can’t just change a book. Idiots.
Kids can just go read the book outside of school, if schools are going to be picky about it.
Twain uses the word “nigger” to show the realism of how negative it truly was. He wasn’t going around calling black people niggers. It was what old slave owners and bitter whites called black people to make themselves feel superiority.I find the novel ironic in the sense that everyone is calling Jim the nigger, being that he is an escaped slave thus fits the stereotype of what a “nigger” would have been, but people like pap, the duke and the dauphin, the Grangerfords, and the Shepardsons were the true “niggers”. If he was using it in a different context and he had a character named Jim that was an escaped slave who like to rape women and eat babies then sure, I’d think he was an elitist, sociopath. But the fact of the matter is that he did not use it in that context. He used it to shed light on how unfair and gruesome the times of that day were. Taking that word out of the book is a HUGE slap in the face to Mark Twain and the purpose of the book. We don’t sugar coat things like the Holocaust, so why sugar coat this?
@Tallman - Nah, I think I’m fine – I’ve already got a huge list of books I actually want to read, lol
Many different books have the N-word in them. I remember having to read them in class too.. I do get offended with the word too but sometimes we have to grow up and ignore it.
I am more offend that the socialist party and pc wanna be’s think it’s ok to damage (in my opinion) a timeless classic such as Huck Finn. As others have posted examples, and most of them, right on the money…I feel that altering timeless pieces of literature, editing priceless works of art and or “updating to not offend” anything in a way that takes away from its original experience. I read Huck Finn as ealry as third grade and I was taught even then that the usage of certain words may or may not upset us but, they were the way people spoke then. I learned early on that the perceptions of others and how they interpret or take the language of the past was up to me to choose how I felt about them and whether or not I would respect the changes in society and not use them.
Sorry, I have lost my train of thought. I have too many thing sI’d like to say but my brain is hurting. downside of head injuries….sorry, I’ll write more later.
Nope. They should leave it in. Censoring a classic such as this is blasphemy. If people are so offended by “nigger,” they need to grow a pair, get over themselves, and realize that Twain wrote the book in the 1800s, not the 1980s or the 2000s.
It is a moot point since it is already done. But no, I think they (whoever they are) should leave things alone. Writing is art, don’t tamper with it. Mark Twain is probably turning in his grave; or perhaps he is getting a good laugh at the stupidity of us “modern, politically correct” humans.
Absolutely not. There was a valid reason why the word was in there and classic literature shouldn’t be changed.
NO! Mark Twain preserved a part of our history.
I am late in this discussion but here’s my opinion:
I think that whoever came up with the idea has no time one his or her hands and they want to make a name for him/herself. I would have to ask all that have read the book this question: “If you take out the n-word is it still consider Mark Twain’s book?” The n-word in the book of “The Adventures of Huck Finn” has a significant meaning/place in the book. Even if it’s for the children, I think that it is better to teach them young instead of taking out what means a lot. I mean, the book was written a long time ago, so I say YES it is wrong to take out the n-word in this book because then you are changing what the real author wants to write/say/make a point.
On another note:
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
No, but at the same time that’s not a word directed at my people. if I was black, I wouldn’t want to hear it.
well, they could ask mark twain for permission. just kidding, he’s dead. so leave his book alone.
BOOM! might as well edit everything if you’re gonna edit that.
i HATE that word to be honest, but you cant just take it out of classic literature because you dont like it. so unbelievable!
oh p.s. i highly doubt kids are going to read it anyway. that’s like me reading moby dick: won’t happen.
That’s dumb. I was required to read the book in the 6th grade…I did it, kids now days can do it too!
This is a crime. Literature should not be changed to fit the current times. By altering original manuscripts, character and context is lost. If there is a concern over teaching children right from wrong, either do not teach the book until they are older and more mature, or stress the point that just because Mark Twain was fond of the word nigger does not mean an American school kid should begin using the term. It is a learning experience, stop trying to shelter kids from stuff so petty.
No! I do not believe in censorship.
@quasarglow - Exactly. Besides, would you rather have kids calling others “slave” instead of the n word? Both are incredibly offensive. Kids can read that when they’re mature enough to handle it. This is ridiculous.
That’s stupid! I read it my Jr year in HS and nobody was offended by it.
It was written within a certain period of history where “nigger” wasn’t yet a slur; they’ve been bitching about this for years, and now the politically correct Gestapo have their way thanks to Obama’s malignant influence.
They should replace the “n word” with nagger.
Are you kidding. Why? That’s simply how they spoke at the time. I’m disappointed in how censored we’re becoming.
If we are going to do this with books then lets do this with all CDs and comedy acts, TV, radio, etc!
No, they should not remove the word. “Hiding” a word from society just because someone deems it “bad” will only make it like that. If people would be comfortable with it, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Are they going to remove swear words from all texts, too? Replace ‘damn’ with ‘by golly’? Come on. This is insanity. I can’t believe they’re doing that. You change the ENTIRE aura of a piece of art (literature, movies, paintings, etc) when you alter it. The whole aura is changed. And not for the better, in my opinion.
No – teach the kids that the word is wrong, and how much society has progressed in equality. We went from the slavery in Huck Finn to Barrack Obama as president of the United States. If we don’t show progress, if we don’t show the hatred towards others and the consequences it has had on the world, what keeps the children from falling into the same actions as those who came before them? We will go in circles as history is forgotten.
http://www.noutopia.com/poem_collins_the%20_history_teacher.html
Oh America. How low will you sink? Huck Finn is history. Changing history is a sin. Slave?!?! -_-
Mista Twain, I appreciate your work and I will only read the originals.
@Mcon - Baha. That made me giggle.
I think the word ‘slave’ is worse than the word ‘nigger.’
It certainly has a far more negative connotation in modern society. Honestly, the word ‘slave’ seems worse than any racial slur to me in general… You are the race you are, but to be held as a slave for the race you were born as is far worse in my book. Race is a positive existence, slavery isn’t.
This is stupid stupid stupid. It’s not “making it more appropriate for children”, it’s just catering to people’s antsiness with an old term that has come to be offensive.
absolutely not. wth
no, that’s ridiculous. it’s not like the book gives it a good connotation. it’s classic piece of literature that shouldn’t be changed like this.
I E-mailed that article to my sister when I first read it, as we both did “Big River” about a decade ago.
Last I checked, Twain had been dead for MANY years… To me, print is like the Internet; When the writer is dead, it’s in its final form.
sooo should we censor every book that uses the word nigger? what about red neck, faggot, dyke, wet back, cracker, honkey, hymie etc…? Should we censor all those too? this is beyond ridiculous. you can’t just go on changing classic literature to please people.
The largest academic reason to read Twain is Realism dialogue.
Remove that, and you’ve got a mediocre adventure story with some whiny sophistry.
Hopefully, school boards won’t condone editions like this being used in their classrooms. However, after reading the comments, apparently we are failing to teach students WHY they actually read Twain in the first place, so it may be too little, too late.
Better discussion and understanding of the N-word than its avoidance.
This is just like when Fahrenheit 51 came out. The government burned the books because they were afraid it would cause anarchy. I’m starting to believe we live in a Communist country instead of a Democracy. They’re even talking about not teaching our children about the Civil War in school.
@spoonleg91 - Literature should not be changed to fit the current times. By altering original manuscripts, character and context is lost.
You must have throughly enjoyed the Iliad in its original Greek.
@beebizzle - A rose is still beautiful without its thorns. The aristic and literary merit of a work like The Adeventures of Huckleberry Finn does not fall or rise on a racial epiteht. Wouldn’t it be pretty pathetic if it did?
what about red neck, faggot, dyke, wet back, cracker, honkey, hymie etc…?
You’d be hard-pressed to find actual works of literature prominently featuring these words.
@halocline - Translation is something entirely different. While a good translation holds true to form as much as possible, some context will certainly be lost. Changing singular words just to appease worried parents and mellow out a dynamic story is a disservice to the author, it is book censorship.
Your argument must be retooled.
Abso-fucking-lutely NOT! The worthless piece of crap who thought this was a good idea should be hanged and gibbeted.
@spoonleg91 - While a good translation holds true to form as much as possible, some context will certainly be lost.
What translated work illustrates here is that the particular wording of a work isn’t absolutely essential to is literary value. War and Peace and One Hudred Years of Solitude remain good-honest classics despite every word altered from their original works.
What’s being done here is the published avaliability of a version of Huck Finn where one word– a racial epithet unessential to plot points or character development– is substitued for another.
Okay, then, go ahead. Explain to me what particular “context” is lost through removal of that N-word.
Fuckin’ stupid. People. Are. Fucking. Stupid.
Twain was actually VERY MUCH against racism. He was using the venacular of the time to write his story, not to be prejudice against anybody.
@quasarglow - I think Marcel Duchamp beat you to that :p http://www.inoutstar.com/images/Marcel-Duchamp-676.jpg
That’s so lame. We read it when I was in high school in class, outloud, n-word included. So much for discussing the cultural differences. That’s right america, sweep your racism under the rug.
first. replace the n-word.
second. douse the book in gasoline and burn it
third. defend the book burning as your constitutional right.
go america!
Utterly horrendous. Even if it were meant to be offensive, there still never is cause to censor literature. Sheesh. I cannot fathom a single argument supporting this.
No. I think people need to realize that times have changed and so has the language. I think that distorting things from the past is dishonest and ridiculous.
@jeantwohawks - That’s so lame. We read it when I was in high school in class, outloud, n-word included. So much for discussing the cultural differences. That’s right america, sweep your racism under the rug.
You should understand, though, verbal rocks hurt. To many, this word most of all.
Acknowledgement of culture, history, and the very real racism doesn’t necessitate their pelting. Nor should the appreciation of Huck Finn. This one edition to one classic is less censorship than it is to choice– for parents an educators who judge, on balance, they could live with a little less N-words in a Mark Twain work.
Okay, I can totally understand them wanting to change the word to make the book seem less offensive, but they shouldn’t tamper with a great work like that. It is very clear in the book that Mark Twain doesn’t approve of the use of the word. He uses the term to depict how life really was at that time and to show that use of it was dumb because black people were just the same as white people. I guess I’m okay with them making an edition for children or something like that..but I don’t want all of the copies of this book to be censored from now on. They can’t censor history, so they shouldn’t be able to change Twain’s retelling of it.
nooooo way.
Absolutely not! Holy smokes. Don’t burn books, don’t ban them, and sure as hell don’t alter them. That’s insulting to the author, especially Mark Twain, whose opinion of the way slaves were treated comes across pretty clearly in the book….
@SexyGamerGirl - Agreed. I’m a lit major too, and this is very upsetting to me.
Not from all editions, definitely.
It’s kind of like teaching school kids about Nazi Germany without showing them the aftermath of “Kristallnacht” in 1938, the death camps or the swastika flag.
I think it is totally wrong messing with classic works such as this. Why not make Shakespeare more English then??? Really it is like messing with time in your own time machine, Leave it alone. It is a part of American history and that is a fact.
@mangiarelamerda - wait wat? please don’t assume that b/c you aren’t interested in literature, that no else is.
i was very driven to read, literature especially, as a teen.
@tendollar4ways - it doesn’t exists in the tea party literature. Its not a racist orginization. I have gone to tea parties, and never once have I seen racism that was not pointed out and driven from the group. They are called infultraitors and we all know to look for them.
@obamawatch - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI
No. If you alter the past, you will never learn from it. It’s like changing history books and pretending Hitler didn’t happen, or slavery. It’s a very bad idea.
Absolutely not! Mark Twain is surely rolling in his grave at this…. not so much defacing a book, but changing his commentary of life.
So we erase all traces of the halocaust, the killing of the Indians and Ohio State U in 1970?
No, it’s idiotic. I’m so sick of this whole “let’s be politically correct and not hurt the children” thing we have going in the USA. It’s moronic!
Can you imagine what Twain would say upon hearing this shit?
@panda_massacre - woah, woah who said that i’m not interested? if you knew me then you’d know that’s a false statement. sorry that you became offended over my opinion which was not even aimed at anybody..
It seems to me that if you’re going to go that route, you need to remove all the profanity from modern fiction as well. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying TO remove it. I am merely saying that it seems hypocritical to remove the speck and not the plank. Just saying. In all honesty, I see the profanity in most works as poor writing and the lazy way out anyway. I’m not for forcing its removal but I think the better writer employs more skill in not using certain words while still making dialog both real and believable.
No. It’s censorship.
@cyberbear - Lol I couldn’t have said it better.
No. I don’t think it should be touched. People need to understand that Huck Finn ( and several other classics) are historically correct. For god’s sake…seriously, there are far worse things parents/ teachers, etc should be worried about; Like kids that are sexually active as young as ten, people killing themselves over bullies….just my two cents though.
@mangiarelamerda -
>>read moby dick, never gonna happen?
you highly doubt kids are going to read this?
sorry i was inferring that you didn’t read b/c you stated a ridiculous opinion.