Updated Version Of Huckleberry Finn To Replace “N” Word With “Slave”

Posted by | January 4, 2011 18:14 | Filed under: Top Stories


A new version of Huckleberry Finn changes the classic in ways that, unfortunately, can also change the intent of its author, Mark Twain. It has often been banned from schools because of its use of the “n” word.

Rather than see Twain’s most important work succumb to that fate, Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the “n” word (as well as the “in” word, “Injun”) by replacing it with the word “slave.”

“This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind,” said Gribben, speaking from his office at Auburn University at Montgomery, where he’s spent most of the past 20 years heading the English department. “Race matters in these books. It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century.”

Keith Stazkiewicz at Entertainment Weekly has it right.

Twain’s book has been one of the most often misunderstood novels of all time, continuously being accused of perpetuating the prejudiced attitudes it is criticizing, and it’s a little disheartening to see a cave-in to those who would ban a book simply because it requires context.

FireDogLake shows how this can seriously infringe on the author’s intent by quoting Jonathan Turley:

Replacing this word with “slave” can change the meaning and certainly the intent of Twain. Consider the following line:

“Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger slave there from Ohio – a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see…

The difference may be subtle but Twain clearly could have used slave. The word existed at the time. Twain chose the n-word to convey something beyond captive status. It was a word used widely. It is still used in literary works to say something about the people who use it.

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Copyright 2011 Liberaland
By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.

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