The work of Mark Twain has been a defining element in American Literature. But his most well-known works “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” aren’t taught in many schools because of the language in the books.
Alan Gribben, a Twain scholar from Auburn University Montgomery in Alabama, and publisher New South Books teamed up to create new editions of the books, replacing the “N-word” with “slave” and offensive terms for Native Americans with “Indian.” New South Books, a publishing company founded in 1986 in Alabama, focuses on “regional books of national interest,” according to the company’s website.
In Gribben’s introduction, he introduces the purposes for the changes, to increase proliferation of the books in schools. However, this changing of an American classic has led to an explosion of discussion touching on issues from censorship to racism.
Even in his own time, Twain was banned from some public libraries, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s “The Online Books Page.” Since then, the books’ suitability for public schools has been hotly contested. A suit filed by parents in Tempe, Arizona against the teaching of Twain made it all the way to Federal Appeals Court in 1998.
“After a number of talks, I was sought out by local teachers, and to a person they said we would love to teach this novel, and Huckleberry Finn, but we feel we can’t do it anymore,” Gribben said in an interview with Publisher’s Weekly. “In the new classroom, it’s really not acceptable.”
This, and experiences reading the book, motivated him to change the 219 instances of the “N-word” to “slave.”
Many argue this change is a censorship of the text and interferes with the integrity of Twain’s words. Gribben himself predicted this reaction.
“I’m hoping that people will welcome this new option, but I suspect that textual purists will be horrified,” he said in the same interview.
Joseph Csicsila, Interim Department Head of the Eastern Michigan University English Department and Twain expert, disagrees with public assessment of Gribben as changing the volume to be politically correct. Csicsila studied under Gribben at Auburn, with Gribben directing his Master’s Thesis.
Csicsila said Gribben is “anything but a PC policeman… his credentials are pretty good for standing up against the things he’s being accused of.”
The main thing Csicsila sees missing from the debate is the Gribben’s introduction to his edition, which introduces the motives behind his changes.
“A lot of people who are commenting ‘no,’ haven’t read the introduction,” Csicsila said. “There’s a lot of sound and fury.”
Csicsila said in conversations with his mentor they discussed Gribben’s motive “to get the story out to the folks where the book had no access before.”
This quote is mirrored directly in the introduction to the new edition, which states the decision involves “two racial slurs that have increasingly formed a barrier to these works for teachers, students and general readers. The editor thus hopes to introduce both books to a wider readership than they can currently enjoy.”
Csicsila went on to explain the problem of teaching the texts, “Huckleberry Finn” in particular.
“To grasp ‘Huckleberry Finn’ requires an understanding of irony,” which is considered one of the highest intellectual measures by psychologists, Csicsila said.
Without the understanding of irony, Twain looks careless, racist, Csicsila said. When taught in a high school classroom, the result is the class gets “into conversations on racism and the n-word,” which is “an hour you don’t discuss Huck Finn or Twain’s story.” So, it turns into a conversation that “interferes with the teaching of the novel as a work of literature.”
“Ideally, you never want to change a text like that,” Csicsila said of the changes. “I wouldn’t use it for the college level.” But he retains that for middle and high school, the new edition might be a positive development.
“Nobody, including Alan, would argue that it’s a perfect fix, but it’s an answer to some of the accusations against Twain,” Csicsila said.
Victor Okafor, Head of EMU’s Department of African American Studies, considers the new edition of the book to be a welcomed evolution.
He cites the practice of “newer editions of the book tend to incorporate concept changes, designed to align books in question with conventional wisdom … it’s a common practice in writing and publishing.”
“There has been an evolution in the way Africans have been referred to in this country,” Okafor said. The removal of the n-word, he considers, “seems like a step in the right direction.”
“My own take on matters of that is than an author should be progressive,” Okafor said. “Even if you are presenting historical data, I believe you have an obligation to present that data in a way that does not de-humanize,” he responded to the argument that removing the N-word compromised the historical context of the work.
Okafor’s take is things using the N-word should be “designed to educate the general public and discourage the use.”
“Words come with a lot of power… oppression and destruction are not only done with physical weapons, they are done with words,” he said.
A great debate on the censorship in can be found at the New York Times website.
