By Rachel Youmans
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, a coming of age story about a white boy helping a man escape slavery, has been used in schools to teach about prejudice and racism since it was first published in America in 1885.
Throughout the book characters, even Huckleberry Finn, casually throw the n-word around without thought. Although this was meant to display the disrespect for black Americans before and after the Civil War, some people find the book itself offensive; Huckleberry Finn is the 4th most challenged book in public schools.
NewSouth Books, an independent publishing company, is now creating an edition of Huckleberry Finn in which every instance of the n-word is changed to the word “slave,” and the word “injun” is also changed to a less offensive term. One of the main reasons is to make the classic more readable for students today.
“It [the n-word] did kind of take away from the book,” junior Hollé Draughn said. “It was one of the reasons why I didn’t like it.”
Many people dislike the idea of changing Huckleberry Finn, because of its longstanding status as a literary classic.
“You don’t modify the works of the great,” junior Dalton Gibbs said. “It’s just not done. Twain is a wonderful author and his works should stand as they are.”
“I can understand why people would be offended,” junior Jorday Taswell said. “But I don’t think it should be changed. Huckleberry Finn is a classic book.”
Dr. Alan Gribben, the man behind the change, claims that the new edition is meant to avoid “preemptive censorship,” wherein schools remove the book from the curriculum to prevent problems.
“The book should stay in schools, because it teaches about that time period,” junior Kelly Soloe said. “If it needs to it should be censored.”
Some students, however, would rather the book be banned than changed.
“The author’s writing shouldn’t be changed,” Draughn said. “If it came down to it, I’d prefer that the book were banned.”
“[Taking out offensive language] takes away from the reality of the situation, and makes less of an impact on people,” Gibbs said. “I think they should keep the book as it is, no matter what.”
However, some believe the use of offensive language in Huck Finn shouldn’t be an issue, and dislike the idea of changing the book status at all.
“I think it’s really ironic to ban Huckleberry Finn from schools because of that word,” English teacher Crystal Lipscombe said. “Originally the book was banned because Twain was making a brazen statement about racism, and how blacks and whites were equal.”
Opponents of the new edition say that removing offensive language from Huckleberry Finn is an attempt to run away from history by pretending it never happened.
“Much of our history is based on that word, and many people have marched and fought because of it. To try and erase it does not pay homage to those people,” Lipscombe said.
“If you do eliminate the word, where does it end? You can’t erase the past. It happened, and much of it was hurtful, but we must acknowledge it,” Lipscombe said.