Bowlderization

<p>I’m interested in hearing opinions on the issue of removing offensive content from classic books. Currently, Huckleberry Finn is undergoing some surgery:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/books/05huck.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=twain&st=cse[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/books/05huck.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=twain&st=cse&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>My inclination is to be against tampering with original works, even if they contain language or ideas now considered beyond the pale. Apparently, HF contains over 200 instances of the “n-word.” I hadn’t realized that there were so many. I would have a hard time reading this aloud, as I could not bring myself to say the word. </p>

<p>Hitting closer to home are the Doctor Dolittle books, a very charming series written in the 1920’s, and republished in rather strangely bowlderized form more recently. I made the decision to read the originals to my sons, who loved the books. </p>

<p>I’m conflicted about the issue in general. What do you think?</p>

<p>I’m conflicted too, but I guess I’d come down on the side of keeping the original works. They represented the world as it was seen at the time. Standards change, but trying to erase the past is never a good idea; that’s how we presumably learn what mistakes to avoid. In the example of Huck Finn, I think the abundant use of the N-word (I’d never be able to say it aloud either) would be a great opportunity to open a discussion with a child about our history and why change was so important.</p>

<p>I’m not conflicted at all. I think it’s terrible to change someone’s work. Coincidentally my 11th grade son just wrote a paper on Huck Finn where he addressed the controversy around it. Twain is not speaking directly to the reader. He is speaking through his characters and they are bound to a time and place and Huck Finn’s speech fits the time and place where he lived. “In his prologue, Twain explains that even the slightest nuances of speech derive from careful observation and craft.” To take an the work of an author who felt that way about language and then change his words to make modern readers feel more comfortable is unethical in my mind. If literature is a form of art, then it needs to remain as the artist intended. </p>

<p>Hemingway believed that “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." While that might be debated, to take a book that is a cornerstone of American literature and alter it is a slippery slope. Yes, it should make us uncomfortable and that discomfort should make us realize how people spoke and how they acted and should help us to understand the message that Twain is sending. To change his text is to retroactively sugarcoat American history and I’m not sure who benefits from that kind of edit.</p>

<p>Thank you, mimk6. You make a very good case. I’ve felt uneasy reading the Doctor Dolittle books to my sons because of the occasional non-PC content (which I have discussed with both of them). It’s much milder than the n-word, but in a way more insidious.</p>

<p>I’m with mimk. However, I do think that if schools feel that it is inappropriate to use the n-word in class readings it’s fine to use something else. In S’ school they just finished the book and they used “slave”, etc.</p>

<p>The current edition does replace “n…” with “slave,” and there is an outcry against it.</p>

<p>I would love to hear from black posters on this. How would you feel if your child were assigned this book? Or if the children read from it in class? Would you want the word replaced or not, or would you prefer that this book not be used?</p>

<p>I’m not black, but I would not want this book to be studied in my child’s middle-school classroom. I would be happy to have him read it at home, with some preparation from me.</p>

<p>NO! That’s what I think!</p>

<p>A book is written when and where it is written and it reflects that origin.</p>

<p>If I were teaching the book, I wouldn’t require anybody to say the “n-word” out loud, but I would absolutely oppose modifying the book. In this case, you can’t change the words without changing the meaning.</p>

<p>I’m getting riled up as I think more about it. </p>

<p>Should we remove the passages about Jews in The Merchant of Venice?</p>

<p>Racists in Of Mice and Men?</p>

<p>Misogyny in the works of Aristphhanes to Saul Bellow and beyond?</p>

<ol>
<li><p>It’s “bowdlerize”, not “bowlderize”.</p></li>
<li><p>This issue came up very prominently last week, when the new leadership had the entire Constitution read in the House of Representatives. Except, of course, they didn’t read the entire Constitution. They omitted the nasty parts about slavery, that are no longer operative.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>People think even more highly of the Constitution than they do of Huckleberry Finn, and they still have trouble with its dark corners. People who want to see the world simplistically as good-or-evil (black-or-white?) have a lot of trouble with dark corners.</p>

<ol>
<li> I generally dislike people who want to simplify the world, so my first instinct is certainly to resist bowdlerizing Twain. Here’s an argument the other way, though:</li>
</ol>

<p>a. At this point in our collective cultural history, the politics of the n-word are so byzantine, and so virulent, that any decent discussion of the use of it in Huck Finn would essentially crowd out any other discussion about the book. And the book has 50 things that deserve more discussion than that. </p>

<p>b. Hemingway’s appraisal is not unique to him; it is basically the canonical opinion of American lit scholars everywhere. Huck Finn may be the single American novel that kids should most read. Especially since most of the other candidates tend to be long and tough to handle at the high school level. But if the only thing people can talk about is n-word, n-word, n-word, it’s impossible to get its extraordinary literary merit.</p>

<p>c. Use of the n-word in Huck Finn is not some major, central artistic choice. It’s simply a realistic reflection of how people like those portrayed in the book talked at the time the book takes place. Twain certainly wasn’t unwilling to tweak convention now and then, hard sometimes, but there’s less of that in Huck Finn than in his saltiest works. My guess is that he wouldn’t have used the word in that book if he had known it would someday offend people. </p>

<p>d. Because the book is actually a milestone in American race relations – practically the first realistic, positive, non-allegorical portrayal of an uneducated Black character. And certainly the first such portrayal that also acknowledges the character’s rough edges and the rough edges attributed to him by others. That’s part of what people need to focus on, and the n-word obscures it.</p>

<p>e. As a practical matter, there’s a clear choice: Don’t touch the book, and don’t teach it in high schools. Or bowdlerize it in this one respect, and teach it. In the final analysis, I would like to see it taught.</p>

<p>Add the Bible to the list. </p>

<p>Then we should get to work on movies and television. Even Mad Men contains a lot of offensive material from that era. Dub the DVD versions that are made.</p>

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</p>

<p>You make a lot of good points, but I disagree with this one. I don’t think he would have changed his usage of the word to accommodate the world to come. He just didn’t seem like the type of guy to worry about that kind of thing. I’m guessing if he could have seen the future, he’d have kept the text as is. I don’t think he was a people-pleaser. But mostly, I don’t think he’d have changed it because I don’t think it would have been credible in his time if he’d changed it. Below is an article from yesterday’s LA Times written by an staff member in which she recalls reading Huck Finn at her predominantly black high school. </p>

<p>[Success</a> for black students: Columnist Sandy Banks picks the brains of her former teachers - latimes.com](<a href=“Success for black students: a lesson”>Success for black students: a lesson)</p>

<p>JHS, thank you for correcting my spelling. I have always been a good speller, until menopause hit. I never even had to check words, now I do. A particular problem is double letters. I have a great deal of difficulty with words like occurrence - one “r” or two? Interesting how hormones, or lack of hormones, operate on the brain.</p>

<p>Even more, thank you for your thoughts on this issue. I think the source of the problem is that the n-word has taken on so much significance that many people can’t tolerate it, while in Twain’s time it was used casually. John Stewart had an interesting take on this issue:</p>

<p>[Mark</a> Twain Controversy - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 01/11/11 - Video Clip | Comedy Central](<a href=“The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - TV Series | Comedy Central US”>The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - TV Series | Comedy Central US)</p>

<p>Twain most certainly WAS a people-pleaser. He was the first author to support himself purely by his pen, or at least to get rich that way (several times, losing everything on bad investments and high living in the interim). He was a best-seller. He wrote – especially his books – for sales. And he never published a lot of the most controversial stuff he wrote (like [Letters</a> From The Earth](<a href=“http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainlfe.htm]Letters”>Letters From The Earth) or [Report</a> from the Recording Angel?By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine)](<a href=“http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90001900]Report”>Page not found | Harper's Magazine)), although he may have read it out loud at private engagements.</p>

<p>The Sandy Banks piece is interesting. I wouldn’t hesitate to teach the unexpurgated novel to a class of all Black students, but it would be very challenging to teach it to a racially mixed high school class.</p>

<p>JHS said " As a practical matter, there’s a clear choice: Don’t touch the book, and don’t teach it in high schools. Or bowdlerize it in this one respect, and teach it. In the final analysis, I would like to see it taught. "</p>

<p>I agree. It’s a classic American novel and should be taught and I’m afraid that because of the language, many schools won’t touch it. I think Twain would prefer his book not become his own definition of a classic:</p>

<p>“‘Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read.”
Mark Twain</p>

<p>I heard a radio piece on this a few days ago. . .As an English teacher/lit major, I have mixed feelings. I think students should be able to understand that the n-word has a different meaning now than it did in that time. They should be able to pass over it. (However, I can see how this would be painful and difficult for some.)
Many schools have taken HF off their reading lists simply because of the n-word. If changing this word to “slave” (btw, I wonder if using “negro” would be more accurate? Or would that be considered just as offensive and the n-word?) makes the difference and allows more students to enjoy this important novel, then. . .OK. (I think Twain would not mind so much, considering how the word has changed.)
S is reading HF in his AP class now–they discussed this issue. The class is mixed.</p>

<p>NO dont change it! we are so afraid of the word, (and i agree it is offensive) that we would destroy a piece of literature?..its not as if kids havent heard the word before.they hear it on tv, they hear it in movies, they hear it on the street… that doesnt mean its right, but as others have said it could be a part of the discussion re the book.</p>

<p>why not go back hmmm to 1972 when i was in high school?;; Catcher in the Rye was the 'taboo" book of the time…i had to take a paper home for my parents to sign agreeing that i could read it… of course they signed it…if parents wouldnt sign another book was given to that student. Do that but dont destroy a book.</p>

<p>Anyone who is interested in this topic may enjoy Randall Kennedy’s extensive discussion of it in his 2002 book . . . that I won’t name here. (Um, “[Slave]”? No.) Kennedy, an African-American law professor at Harvard, is not in favor of excising the word from the works of Twain, but he would be happy (I think) to cut it out of the works of L’il Wayne.</p>

<p>As for the sacredness of the work of art: It kind of depends. No one gets outraged when editors correct Shakespeare’s spelling and punctuation to modern standards. And few, very few staged productions of Hamlet fail to leave out some big chunks of the play as published. (Those that don’t . . . can be very boring.) No one gets bent out of shape about that.</p>

<p>Really, the argument here turns on whether the word has an important artistic function in the book. I tend to think it has, but it’s clear that way the word functions in the book is different now than it did when the book was written in the 1880s or than it would have in the 1840s when the action of the book takes place. Not that the word wasn’t insulting 170 years ago – it certainly was – but the depth of the insult and the complications of the word were less. As indicated above, I can’t get that upset about a publisher offering an alternative version that tries to avoid this problem, although I don’t think that it’s the best idea going.</p>

<p>

But there are other options as well: Teach the book in HS as written, or Teach the book as written but substitute other words when reading in class (S’ high school doing this). Personally, I think they are going down a slippery slope by trying to sanitize the text itself.</p>

<p>Now I have to get back to work on that loincloth I’m knitting for the statue of David that graces one of our expressways…:)</p>

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<p>I don’t agree. He may have done what it took to make money as a writer, but you have to look at his life as a whole and how he lived it to consider whether or not he was a people-pleaser.</p>