History happened, plain and simple, yet 2011 has already brought another round of controversy for Huckleberry Finn, one of Mark Twain’s classic novels about boyhood and society in the South. Written in the southern vernacular of the time, the novel uses the “n-word” more than 200 times. Alan Gribben, a professor of literature at Auburn University at Montgomery, has teamed up with NewSouth Books to release a version of Huckleberry Finn that does not include the “n-word,” and instead uses “slave.” While his goal is to make the text more accessible for younger audiences, the release of this new version sends the wrong message and obscures the true meaning of the text.
Twain’s story is an historical benchmark that satires what life was like during the Reconstruction period. The work is a true masterpiece, because by including the vernacular in the dialogue of the story, Twain was able to create a voice for the time period. Gribben seems to be trying to hush history by taking away the truth from his new version. To truly understand and appreciate Twain’s work is accepting and understanding his style and the historical context of Huckleberry Finn.
Even though Gribben’s aim is to make the novel more accessible for younger students and make it more comfortable for teachers to talk about in their classes, that does not make it okay to change the context of the story. The “n-word,” no matter how offensive it is in modern times, needs to stay in the book to maintain the novel’s original context; otherwise Gribben is watering down the history of the story and bending to the needs of modern society.
Accepting that the “n-word” is in Twain’s novels is not to say that the word is now socially acceptable. Instead, by keeping the word in the future reprints of the novel, keeps the opportunity open for dialogue about the historical contexts of the words and learn about its role and affect on society then and now. People in our community are still affected by the use of this word. We especially saw this after the outcry the campus heard from the hate speech in the Free Expression Tunnel. However, just because people were outraged by the painting, students and administrators have been able to have a thoughtful conversation about free expression and hate speech. How is the use of the “n-word” in Huckleberry Finn any different?
Gribben is socially aware of his actions in releasing this book without the “n-word.” This column fulfills his hopes that there is discourse about this choice. Although I do not agree with the use of the word, I am not unreasonable to cover my ears and believe it never happened. It shouldn’t be in elementary school curriculums, but middle school students should have access to it in the classroom on their way to high school. Watering it down only make things harder for them to understand as they get older. With this in mind, Twain himself would turn over in his grave and would chastise our ignorance of history for the sake of exposure.
