Huck and Jim
Introduction to the NewSouth edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Fantastic reading. If all you've seen of the current controversy is "they're taking out the n-word!" and/or sarcastic comments on Twitter, I urge you to read the introduction. (Particularly because they aren't just removing the word, but replacing it with "slave", and also because they're removing a perjorative term for Native Americans and replacing it with "Indian". They're also replacing "half-breed" with "half-blood.")
I find that I can’t get all that worked up about this. Part of the reason is that if this is what it takes to put one of the books on most people’s shortlist for The Great American Novel* into the hands of more people and off the list of books most frequently removed from school libraries, I’m all for it. Part of it is that we have a certain hysteria over the n-word that means that all historical instances of it need to be painstakingly put into context and even then some students (black and otherwise) refuse to accept the text. (Believe me, I’ve gone through this many a time, teaching American history using mostly primary documents.) In fact, when I was in high school in the 80s, there was a movement of African-American parents to remove the book from schools because of its use of the word. Part of the reason is that this novel has long since passed into the public domain, so it’s not like this particular edition will be the only one that exists-and surely there are somewhat expurgated versions of The Canterbury Tales that get read in schools as well.
What this particular controversy makes me think of, again, is how unfortunate it is that for so many Americans their only exposure to literature, other than the occasional Oprah Book Club selection, is their high school English classes. And I’m just not sure if the average room of 14-year-olds is the right environment for a classroom discussion of the use of the n-word in Huck Finn. It has a tendency, by its mere presence, to overshadow everything else that’s going on in the book, which I think is really too bad. Because otherwise, it’s an incredibly accessible text, funny and clever and narrated by a kid who stands a little outside of the culture he’s observing. And Jim is one of my favorite characters, ever.
So if a few more people get to meet Jim in a book where he’s referred to as a slave rather than the n-word, I really can’t see that as a bad thing.
*My own shortlist is Huck Finn, Gatsby, Moby-Dick, and Beloved.
crossposted from Dreamwidth |
comments | comment at Dreamwidth
Fantastic reading. If all you've seen of the current controversy is "they're taking out the n-word!" and/or sarcastic comments on Twitter, I urge you to read the introduction. (Particularly because they aren't just removing the word, but replacing it with "slave", and also because they're removing a perjorative term for Native Americans and replacing it with "Indian". They're also replacing "half-breed" with "half-blood.")
I find that I can’t get all that worked up about this. Part of the reason is that if this is what it takes to put one of the books on most people’s shortlist for The Great American Novel* into the hands of more people and off the list of books most frequently removed from school libraries, I’m all for it. Part of it is that we have a certain hysteria over the n-word that means that all historical instances of it need to be painstakingly put into context and even then some students (black and otherwise) refuse to accept the text. (Believe me, I’ve gone through this many a time, teaching American history using mostly primary documents.) In fact, when I was in high school in the 80s, there was a movement of African-American parents to remove the book from schools because of its use of the word. Part of the reason is that this novel has long since passed into the public domain, so it’s not like this particular edition will be the only one that exists-and surely there are somewhat expurgated versions of The Canterbury Tales that get read in schools as well.
What this particular controversy makes me think of, again, is how unfortunate it is that for so many Americans their only exposure to literature, other than the occasional Oprah Book Club selection, is their high school English classes. And I’m just not sure if the average room of 14-year-olds is the right environment for a classroom discussion of the use of the n-word in Huck Finn. It has a tendency, by its mere presence, to overshadow everything else that’s going on in the book, which I think is really too bad. Because otherwise, it’s an incredibly accessible text, funny and clever and narrated by a kid who stands a little outside of the culture he’s observing. And Jim is one of my favorite characters, ever.
So if a few more people get to meet Jim in a book where he’s referred to as a slave rather than the n-word, I really can’t see that as a bad thing.
*My own shortlist is Huck Finn, Gatsby, Moby-Dick, and Beloved.
crossposted from Dreamwidth |
comments | comment at Dreamwidth