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sophiaserpentiaI confess I am undecided on how I feel about the bowdlerizing of Huckleberry Finn. Part of me feels like, if the one thing preventing people from being able to progress in and appreciate the work is the frequent and casual use of a word now considered highly unacceptable, maybe it's not really all that bad to publish an edition that omits it. (I'm not sure "slave" is quite an appropriate substitute, though...) Plus, it's not as if copies of the work in its original form will spontaneously cease to exist.
OTOH, it's not just any word in question. It's a word which is a symbol of the most horrific aspect of American history, and the America of the present.
OTOOH, while editorial decisions to alter works of fiction are made every day, this is an American classic we're talking about; it's not exactly holy scripture, but we shouldn't go changing it without serious reflection.
Says Professor Sam Quinn on his decision to stop teaching the book:
For the record, in another comment Professor Quinn says he does not support the bowdlerized version; he'd rather leave the work as-is, he's just going to stop teaching it. And he has a point: leaving the work as-is certainly preserves the evidence it provides of America's hideous legacy of racism.
Americans in general have a reflexive resistance to the idea of something offensive and objectionable being removed. On the whole I think that's entirely healthy and appropriate. Most of us are well aware that it's a bit hypocritical to object to specific words that everyone uses or fleeting images of nudity (we've all seen naked people), while raising no objection to disturbing or even traumatic themes or treatments. We simply on the whole have no respect for timidness in the face of life's smelly details.
But this word is not simply a fleeting expletive. Whenever it comes up in discussion I'm reminded of what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
novapsyche pointed out once about comedian Richard Pryor's comments about why he stopped liberally using the n-word in his stand-up routine. He said his intent had been to disarm the word, to make it less powerful, to reduce the amount of pain it causes black people, but then he learned that white people were mimicking his usage and citing him as proof that the word was acceptable to use in an offhand way, thereby causing harm to black people.
I guess the lesson here is that unraveling racism is like pulling out an arrow. Do it the wrong way, and you increase the injury.
OTOH, it's not just any word in question. It's a word which is a symbol of the most horrific aspect of American history, and the America of the present.
OTOOH, while editorial decisions to alter works of fiction are made every day, this is an American classic we're talking about; it's not exactly holy scripture, but we shouldn't go changing it without serious reflection.
Says Professor Sam Quinn on his decision to stop teaching the book:
[T]rying to lecture about its literary merits takes a back seat when I see how African American students (I’m talking about teenage sophomores, taking the class for core credit) are reacting to the iterations of THAT WORD. The problem is that Twain doesn’t distinguish between those who are using the word in a "kindly" manner (we could probably assume that this is the only word for black people that Huck has ever heard) and those who are using it an an epithet. Used indiscriminately in these ways, it just makes everyone in a classroom uncomfortable.
For the record, in another comment Professor Quinn says he does not support the bowdlerized version; he'd rather leave the work as-is, he's just going to stop teaching it. And he has a point: leaving the work as-is certainly preserves the evidence it provides of America's hideous legacy of racism.
Americans in general have a reflexive resistance to the idea of something offensive and objectionable being removed. On the whole I think that's entirely healthy and appropriate. Most of us are well aware that it's a bit hypocritical to object to specific words that everyone uses or fleeting images of nudity (we've all seen naked people), while raising no objection to disturbing or even traumatic themes or treatments. We simply on the whole have no respect for timidness in the face of life's smelly details.
But this word is not simply a fleeting expletive. Whenever it comes up in discussion I'm reminded of what
novapsyche pointed out once about comedian Richard Pryor's comments about why he stopped liberally using the n-word in his stand-up routine. He said his intent had been to disarm the word, to make it less powerful, to reduce the amount of pain it causes black people, but then he learned that white people were mimicking his usage and citing him as proof that the word was acceptable to use in an offhand way, thereby causing harm to black people.I guess the lesson here is that unraveling racism is like pulling out an arrow. Do it the wrong way, and you increase the injury.
