Yesterday, my friend Andrew Entzminger posted a link to an NPR story on Facebook about the recent efforts of two scholars to edit Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Their main goal is to make the book less offensive by replacing the infamous “N-word,” which is used upward of 200 times, with “slave.”
That alone is enough to make me want to join in with all the other critics and cry out, as my friend did, that “This is a perfect example of someone completely missing the point. The book is quite possibly one of the greatest anti-racism works of all time, and it’s use of the n-word is not only appropriate for the time period, but used to illustrate how deragatory it actually is.” Well said,
At the same time, though, I think it’s important to highlight the superb job that AP writer Philip Rawls did in The Washington Post in covering this story. Mark Twain scholar Alan Gribben of the University of Auburn is the man at the center of the controversy who wants to make the switch. Scholar or not, though, somehow I suspect that just about everyone who is not offended at the books is going to disagree with Gribben’s move.
It’s impossible to tell where Rawls stands on this though, and as a journalist, that’s how it should be. He cites some of the most powerful arguments on both sides. Twain himself, for instance, said that the difference between the right word and the almost right one is “the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
Gribben is thoroughly convinced in his idea that the “N-word” is too much for many Americans to handle, and he has his reasons, including, he says, that when people have written him hateful emails that accuse him of “desecrating” Twain’s novels “not one of them mentions the word. They dance around it.”
After reading the whole article, I can definitely see where he’s coming from. The story says that Gribben “would have opposed the change for much of his career, but he began using ‘slave’ during public readings and found audiences more accepting.”
I still disagree with the decision, but to be fair, maybe some good will come of it. It may indeed get the book in more hands–and the more exposure to Twain the better, I’d say. I suppose an argument could be made for the legitimacy of pragmatism, too. The only law that fiction writers are ultimately bound by is what works. You are allowed to break any rule as long as it gets the job done.
Yet there is a difference between good, functional writing and selling out to your audience. I say it is a sad commentary on the American culture and our era of political correctness if we cannot stomach the historic reality of the “N-word” and study a piece of literature in its own context. Perhaps Twain, had he written “Hunk Finn” today, would have used “slave” instead of the “N-word,” but guess what? He’s not writing today!
Instead, this seems more like the first step down a very long, slippery slope. If we’re allowed to start tweaking great literature because it offends our modern vernacular and sensibilities, what else can we change? The truth can be painful to remember, and it is important for students to learn how to step out of 21st century America and realize that both social attitudes and languages change. I’m not saying this marks the downfall of American literature as we know it, or that it will lead to mass censorship and editing of other great works, but it certainly doesn’t help to uphold the timelessness and brilliance of great literature either.
acwords 