Wednesday 5 January 2011

In the name of the wee man...

The unthinkable has happened: they're going to censor Huck Finn.

Publishers Weekly reported on Monday that a soon to be released edition of Mark Twain’s classic of American literature, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, will replace all instances of the ‘n-word,’ “the singularly offensive word” used to refer to African Americans throughout the late 19th-century text. Editors have also decided to do away with the word “injun,” replacing it as well with “slave.”

Yeah.  Now, I'm normally one who has to wait, count to ten, calm down, and then make a ruling on something.  After all, there are plenty of "classics for tots" series that take the bare bones of a great story, and present it in more simple language for tinies.  That, I don't mind too much, though I'd rather kids waited to experience the story as it was originally written. This isn't that, though.  This is the original text, except with a Find/Replace on all uses of the word nigger - the mere fact these people use "the n-word" shows they fundamentally lack the maturity to even discuss it - as well as injun. In other words, bowdlerisation.

I particularly have to laugh at this final paragraph in the National Post's article:

We’d like to know what you think. Is taking the n-word and other slurs out of Mark Twain censorship, or a step in the right direction in terms of getting younger people better acquainted with literature of the U.S. Civil War era? Let us know in the comments below.

Are they kidding? A group of people are seeking to subvert Mark Twain's* freedom of expression by mangling his literature.  This is practically the very definition of censorship.  As for the latter statement, how on earth are younger people supposed to get better acquainted with literature of the U.S. Civil War era if you're going to remove the language of that era? The literature of the period included words like nigger, which are naturally highly insensitive today, but it's an important lesson.  You can't whitewash history: all you can do is wait until a child is old and mature enough to be able to deal with it.

In attempting to make history more palatable for children, they're making a mockery of the real struggle the Civil War was about, in many ways.  Are they going to censor To Kill a Mockingbird next?

*As if accusations of my preoccupation with Howard weren't loud enough, I mistakenly put Mark Finn here.  Not that I think I do either Mark much a disservice, of course.

6 comments:

  1. OH MY GOD!! That happened in a Simpson episode... and it was supposed to be a FUNNY thing!!

    Seriously... my mind simply cant afford such stupidity... Go to hell, censors. Go to hell.

    Mark twin! I'm still cant believe it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. To those politicaly correkt Kommisars behind this project I say: Why stop there? Is America's history of slavery and racism unpalatable? What about economic hardship? In these time people are sensitive. So lets take all references to the Great Depression or the dustbowl out of Grapes of Wrath!

    Hey, what about Germany? Why don't they just try to erase any evidence that the Holocaust ever happened?

    What? Why are your eyes bugging out of your head? Is that foam coming out of your mouths?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, odd considering Twain was making an anti-slavery statement putting the dreaded "N-word" in Huck Finn 219 times with hopes of shocking folks and getting them to think about the whole issue.

    ReplyDelete
  4. OH MY GOD!! That happened in a Simpson episode... and it was supposed to be a FUNNY thing!!

    Heh, it would be the Simpsons, wouldn't it? It gets really depressing when something that's supposed to be a grim parody ends up happening.

    What? Why are your eyes bugging out of your head? Is that foam coming out of your mouths?

    It's the only logical conclusion. After all, as we all know, we've always been at war with Oceania...

    Yeah, odd considering Twain was making an anti-slavery statement putting the dreaded "N-word" in Huck Finn 219 times with hopes of shocking folks and getting them to think about the whole issue.

    Exactly, Damon. Using such an offensive word to make people stop and think is kinda the point of Huck Finn.

    What makes me laugh is this new edition is just doing the same thing. Whenever someone says "the N word," you immediately think "nigger." So what's the point of saying "the N word" in the first place? You're thinking it in your head, whether you think the word's offensive or not. It's just so mindlessly pointless and counter productive.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Right you are. Sometimes when I hear someone say "the N word," I'm tempted to ask "what are you talking about - noodles?"

    ReplyDelete
  6. so crazy....I was just listening to the NY Times books podcast and they talked about this. I know there are some people who are sensitive to this as well they should be. At the same time, part of Twain's magnificence comes in his ability to reconstruct the vernacular of the time.

    I have a hard time with this in multiple ways...on the one hand I'm a reader, an English major and (eventually plan to be) an English teacher...on the other hand, I'm religious with conservative moral values tempered with moderate/liberal social leanings. I don't swear personally and I would never intentionally use racial slurs. When I read books with vulgarity/sex/etc, I skim over the section but still acknowledge it.

    I think some of the comments above really hit the point on the head...part of the use of these words was to properly and accurately portray the civilization of the time, to satirize it in a realistic portrayal. By completely pulling the words out, the teacher is denying himself and his class the teaching opportunity to fully show what Twain was trying to do and to accentuate Twain's abilities to paint a vivid picture through words.

    As a teacher, I doubt I would go forward and actually CREATE a whole new edition of a work to edit out the objectionable bits. However, if such a book exists, I might consider using it...not for the entire class, but for those students who submit a form saying they're (potentially) offended by the text. Many/most schools I know have an "opt out" policy that allows the students to request an alternate assignment based on potential threats to their personal beliefs/morals. By having a "toned down" version of the text which is 99% the same, it would allow the teacher to still present the text to the entire class while helping to avoid the wrath of parents.

    In my High School experience, I seem to remember one or two students opting out of some reading...and in each case, it was at the request of their parent. In talking about the book and the potentially objectionable portions, the students were not offended. Now, this can partly speak to another argument I've heard (that there's a degradation of morality among the youth) and to an extent it may be true...but on the other hand, it may be that we're realizing that we don't need to be offended by everything...rather, we should learn from the mistakes of the past.


    Now, if teaching Huck Finn suddenly resulted in an influx of verbal racial slurs in the class, then I may be concerned...I may have to go Google for any studies on correlations between racial harassment and the teaching of Huck Finn. Somehow I doubt there's been any proven link.

    ReplyDelete