Mark Twain was a man who liked being talked about. After the release of his autobiography last fall he was discussed in many papers, due to the book’s overwhelming success. This holiday season brought more media attention to feed the ghost of Twain’s ego with the publication of new, censored versions of his two most famous works: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In the case of Huckleberry Finn, the book has removed the N-word (a racial slur used 219 times over the course of the novel) and replaced it with the word “slave.” This upset the literary world.
The New York Times wrote an op-ed about the replacement of the n-word and showed how such censorship has resulted in the life being sucked out of art. The article displayed lines from Shakespeare, rendered to be politically correct; they became plain pieces of poetry, worlds away from Shakespeare’s masterful prose. And, while it’s understandable for the literary world and artists to be up in arms over the censorship of Twain’s classic book, I feel it’s a slight overreaction.
The newly censored version of Twain’s book was produced by Alan Gribben, a professor of English in Auburn University at Montgomery, Alabama. Gribben produced this edition with the hope of seeing the book re-appear on school reading lists. Gribben believes that the book has been slowly disappearing from syllabi due to its harsh language. He wanted to present a more user-friendly version of the text, so that anyone who felt alienated or found the language too appalling could now read it. With these reasons in mind, I think it is absolutely fine to release a politically-correct version of the book. It would have been a larger issue if Gribben’s edition was going to replace the original. But the new version of Twain’s book should not be seen as some government “big brother” move that is attempting to destroy literature Fahrenheit 451-style. No, the edition has been produced by a professor of literature, who is attempting to widen the book’s readership. Is that not a virtuous goal?
Furthermore, it seems no different from musicians releasing cleaned-up versions of their songs. Censoring a song or an album opens up the artist’s work to a wider audience. For instance, rap tracks have for years been censored when played on the radio. In such songs the n-word has been used in such a way as to remove its original derogatory meaning, unlike Huckleberry Finn which only portrays the maliciousness of the word. But even with the empowering usage of the N-word in such songs, the term still gets censored along with other inappropriate phrases.
Many may see the censorship of Huckleberry Finn not only as a violation of Twain’s original words, but something that undermines the central themes, tensions, and ironies of the novel. But while the removal of the n-word definitely weakens the overall harshness of the society that is being presented, the irony is not removed. African-Americans were horribly discriminated against and de-humanized, and while removing the racial slur used against blacks might make the world of that time seem less evil, the black characters are still being de-humanized — actions, and things said beyond the n-word in the novel, go so far as to present those very problems, to an even harsher degree than the use of the n-word. When a character asks Huck whether anyone got hurt in a boat explosion, does it really matter if Huck says “No Ma’am, a slave,” or “No Ma’am, a nigger”? The fact still remains, that the likeable child hero, Huck, after spending days on a raft with his runaway slave friend Jim, still doesn’t consider a black person a human being. It seems that the conflict and tensions of that time are in full effect, regardless of the N-word being there or not.
Unearthing the themes, ironies, and tensions of the novel (which I believe are the reasons why the original text should be studied at a post-secondary level): are those things somehow secondary to the literature itself? Can literature no longer be read and enjoyed for the sake of it? An artist doesn’t write something for its themes to be dissected by academics, so isn’t the argument that the censoring of the novel undermines the central themes of the book not itself undermining the very purpose of why the novel was written in the first place, which was to be read and enjoyed by readers?
While I fully support the study of English literature (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is, after all, an exhilarating tale of a boy running away from home) can we really expect children in grade five to understand the full impact of the N-word when reading the story? The word would probably fly over the child’s head, if anything, and would be detrimental to their vocabulary. It thus seems beneficial to have a child-friendly version of the novel, so our youth can engage with classic literature. Some would argue that children shouldn’t be engaging in such a complex text, but that seems counter-productive. It is beneficial for the youth of our society to read classic literature, and if reading altered texts, they can go on to study the original text and dissect it to their hearts’ content when they enter university.
While it can seem like society’s attempts to make everything politically correct might seem overbearing and sometimes unnecessary, the censored version of Huckleberry Finn seems more beneficial than detrimental. It should be remembered that this is a censored version. The original text is not being banned. But offering readers a more inclusive version of the story is a good thing. And what would Mr. Twain want? He’d probably want to sell more books and have more people talking about him. Censored or uncensored, at the very least, Twain is still grabbing our attention.
