On Air: Must today's values be applied to all literature?

This is revisionism.

I don't believe it is appropriate to apply today's values to classic literature. We should preserve classic literature; not seek to change it. You undermine the feel of the work when you alter it just to ensure you are not offending delicate sensibilities. I am Native American and I am not offended by the term "injun" because it is true to the time period. Its the same with the n. word; we know it's inappropriate now but then it was a norm then. I also think that we remember how far we have come when we see those instances where we have such different values today.

That single word represents the dehumanization and brutality visited upon our brothers and sisters and indicts our society still today. Though surely not the revising editor's intention, expunging it from Mark Twain's books might as easily be seen as a whitewashing of a shameful period of our history from which we have not sufficiently recovered. It is still far to easy, and common, for racists around the world to devalue others' lives and Twain's writing reminds us of the possibility and importance of progress.

As an author, I find this appalling. It's no longer Twain's work. It's the PC Police version of Huck Finn, not Mark Twain's version.

Go to Twitter. Enter the "n-word" in the search and get an eyeful of how much the word is used today and by people of color. You'll even see how many people of color aren't offended by the word in classic literature like Twain. It's insulting to everybody to assume they can't handle such words in context.

Sometimes it is sensible to rewrite ancient works but only because modern readers wouldn't be able to read it properly (the bible is a good example). However, I don't think it is either necessary nor beneficial to start rewriting perfectly readable books only because some of its language has become offensive. Otherwise we risk rewriting history bit by bit.

This is another brick in the wall of political correctness and it is disgusting. Not only that, it is a denial of history and a denigration of a work by one of the best authors of all time.

These words are part of the times the story comes from. Change them if you need to. It's not just these words that are jarring in the story. Every thing in Huck's life is unacceptable from the perspective of our times. A father who keeps him under lock and key, and treats him so badly that his well wishers are relieved at the death of the father, later in the story (so matter-of-factly). Huck himself, having to fend for himself, swinging between grown-up like concerns and childish care free delight, and everything else.

So, should we discard all stories that carry the baggage of the past? Most of the time they are very engaging, amusing and instructive.I believe that being able to relate to other times and places enriches us. Just because we enjoy the story, it does not mean we condone evrything that happens there.

But we all have our own special raw nerves and sensitivities. I can think of some works of literature that come from closer to home that I will not warm up to because of condesending depictions of some social classes, or women.

Come to think of it, how does one evaluate Jane Austen? None of the working class people there have any human dimensions. and when you think of it, it is difficult to sympathize with the convoluted romantic concerns of women who never had to cook, clean, or do anything productive. But no, it is possible to to blinker oneself to these aspects and appreciate the trials and triumps of these women in their limited sphere of life.

But then, I dont have the same indulgence for older Indian writers who write in a feudal set up. In conclusion, these stories are valuable goods, but we have to understand when people would rather avoid them.

As a former English teacher, I just wrote a really good, balanced, and insightful response to your question, but instead of writing "n-word," I wrote that word (in quotes) as YOU did above. When I posted my comment, a screen came up "There Is A Problem" and the "n-word" (can't type the actual word in quotes or this will be flagged again) was listed below it. What kind of discourse can there be on a topic if your own Political Correctness won't permit a member from using the same word you use in your intro? The filters you use to screen respondents comments might save you time, but you are not only losing important input in your daily conversation, you are also serving up to us all the same pablum that Dr. Gribben serves when he edited Huck Finn. If nothing else, your filters demonstrate that WHYS aligns itself more with Gribben's version of Huck Finn than Mark Twain's original. (Sigh.)

Literature should be a depiction of the reality it tackles, be it in the past or the present. Literature uses language to convey a message or to tell a story. language is subject to change. Many words in Shakespeare's plays , for example, have become archaic or they have different meaning. The word "gay" used to be used commonly as an adjective meaning "happy". Today it is hard to use it as such and say, for example, "Today I feel gay thanks to the nice weather." or "last night, I had a gay party."

Concerning, the use of the epithets "injun" and "ni**er" in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, they should be kept. There should be a footnote or a page at then start of the novel, explaining to the reader the context in which they were used at that time.

Currently, there are many offensive words, considered as taboo, which are used in modern literature and movies as a reflection of the words currently used in reality. Changing them with polite words won't change their current use. What can be offensive are attitudes that harm the other side. If the epithets "injun" and "ni**er" reflect offensive attitudes, then the whole novel should banned or its plot should be accommodated to today's "political correctness".

If a book has survived the test of time, it is valuable literature. It has some virtue and strength. In case of Mark Twain, he can convey a life like picture of his times through his stories. they make us laugh, and they show us how his world looked and felt like. He passes over the discrimination matter-of-factly. It was not his concern.

If you cast your wide enough, you will find other authors who address every aspect of their times. If jane Austen treated all working people as invisible beings, then you have Dickens whose works were devoted to their lives. For a Tolstoy whose novels with social themes dealt exclusively with the degenerate lives of the rich, you have a Dostoyevsky who will drive you to depression with the helplessness of the poor.

No. Or else we would be forever rewriting books as our values continue to change.
There is also a danger of changing the meaning of the text. Understanding of a text changes with each generation and situational context. By changing something to suit what we think is right at this point in time, we are denying others their own interpretations and conclusions.

Come on! What a stupidity?! The political correctness starts to change the classical literature. The replaced words show a part of our history. History, which is shameful, but it is true. And to be honest, I think that teachers can use Mark Twain's book as an example of rasiscm and explain children what is wrong in such kind of words.

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"12. At 4:54pm on 06 Jan 2011, Maria wrote:

I think that teachers can use Mark Twain's book as an example of rasiscm and explain children what is wrong in such kind of words."

Exactly, and to add to my own comment I ask: should we rewrite Roman historic texts as well? After all, isn't it offensive to Germans, Dutch and French that their peoples were labeled "barbarians" by the Roman writers? There are also plenty of ancient Chinese and Japanese texts that call Westerners barbarians.

I don't think it should be touched, period. It's as silly as a fellow student who accused my daughter of being racist because she's a big fan of Faulty Towers. There is an episode where one of the older residents in the hotel says the "n" word, as well as some other racial epithets. Part of what made that particular incident funny to me is that he couldn't get his racial epithets straight, and he was obviously a very old man who was out of touch with reality. Ironically, the only time I saw an African-American in the show he was a doctor in hospital, with white nurses working for him. Are we supposed to just pretend this word never existed, and that this whole episode in our history never happened? I sympathize with all the children who will be reading this outloud in class and will feel uncomfortable, but that's fine. We should just deal with feeling uncomfortable and get on with the story.

This also reminds me of the movie Thank you for smoking where all the old movies and photos were going to be altered so that these old movie stars would look like they were blowing party favors, whistling, or sipping mugs of coffee instead of smoking.

I'm kind of surprised that I don't care more about this. Great storytelling is critical to a great society. Mark Twain was an amazing storyteller. But changing one word doesn't lessen the story for me. That word isn't central to the story...the character and the situation are central to the story.

I certainly don't think it's necessary to remove offensive language from literature...in fact it's dangerous. But I don't think this instance is an outrage. We minimize the import of the narrative if we try to boil it down to one word.

I'll listen to the show and maybe it'll change my mind.

Quite definetley, today's values makes it a must to replace those demeaning words which offends Black and indian peoples, after all children growing up must not be subjected to terminology which is offensive to them. when these books were published at the time it was quite acceptable and of no consequence to white people regardless to the feelings of blacks and indians. Peter Messent argument is as rediculas as it appears for he is neither black nor an indian, there is no question that as these books were written at a time, the words used were in fact racist and nothing less. Good literature will remain as long as the words are altered and made more acceptable in our modern times, so as not to offend minorities in any way whatsoever.
Mark Twain lived at the time when both blacks lived as slaves and indians were subjucated to discrimination in more ways than one. Other demeaning examples no less, "Shylock the Jew", "Ebinezzer Scrooge", demean and are racist against the jewish people. To allow racism and discrimination is to agree Hitler's Nazi Germany was right in the persecution of jews, gypsies and others.
In conclusion, today's values should be applied to all literature and is a must.

This is sheer vandalism, it displays a woeful lack of understanding of what literature is “for”.
Naturally the “n” word, like some others referring to ethnicity, is offensive in the 21st century but literature, just as all art, has to be understood in context and it is indeed by reading it within its own context that we are able to understand human feelings and attitudes as they once were, then seeing how they have evolved to produce the societal values we may, or of course may not, share, X number of years/ decades/ centuries later on. If we can look back on attitudes that were once acceptable and see how they are now no longer so, this, in theory should also help us to examine our current attitudes with a critical eye, questioning our own assumptions, with luck to the betterment and further evolution of society.

@ Elias “Good literature will remain as long as the words are altered and made more acceptable in our modern times, so as not to offend minorities in any way whatsoever.”

Sorry, I’m scratching my head frantically here, if you change the words, what remains of the literature??????

We can use "N-word" to our hearts content, yet we are to be driven from our jobs, homes, and expunged from the official records for saying or reading "The Word?"

That is also broadcast around the world daily in hip-hop/rap lyrics? Or listen to worse in movies, on street corners, or what pops out of politician's mouths?

The Ivory Tower Powers That Be are well and truly de-evolving. Fig leaves, we need more fig leaves, ear plugs, blinders, and a big bucket of sand for noggins.....oh dear.....

I can think of some 19th/20th century English language writers, Kipling for one, who I do absolutely cringe at these days - but then he was very much a third division hack (after all he got the Nobel Lit. Prize) compared to Mark Twain.
These writers just fall out of favour and are eventually forgotten by all but a few academics in search of a Phd, so there is no need to censor their prose, but emasculating a work of great literature just because certain words make us feel “uncomfortable” completely defeats the object.

Removing the "N-word" and "injun" from period works such as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn render them something lesser than the Author's Original Work, whether that author is Mark Twain, John Grisham, Sidney Sheldon, or Lady Murasaki (author of "The Tale of Genji," generally regarded as the earliest example of the novel).

I personally do not use demeaning language to refer to people of other races, ethnicities, religions, or genders, but I believe that censoring the literary works that have stood the test of time is nothing less than a crime against the intellect.

Other demeaning examples no less, "Shylock the Jew", "Ebinezzer Scrooge", demean and are racist against the jewish people. To allow racism and discrimination is to agree Hitler's Nazi Germany was right in the persecution of jews, gypsies and others.
----

"Shylock the Jew" was the character's name. His name was Shylock. Ebenezer Scrooge had nothing to do with Jews. The story was about Christmas and how Scrooge had become a mean man and a shutin because of his past, and business decisions, and after being visited by 3 spirits of christmas, he was scared into changing his ways. I don't know how you can connect shakespeare and Dickens to the nazis.

If we took your view to the extreme, everyone can find something offensive in anything. Some books call americans "Yanks" or other terms. Are the nazis winning unless we cleanse the book of that term?

I was just flipping the channels a couple nights ago and some show or station called TMZ was doing a show on "white trash"... Are the nazis winning becuse it's okay to make fun of white people like that?

It's 90/10 - 90% of me says = No I don't think things should be changed to suit a modern audience. Literature is also history, and if we keep changing it to suit the current fashionable and generational trends throughout time, we'll end up forgetting what was said and done. Reading something that is famous, historic or paints life as it actually was in the past, helps us to see how far we've come and should not really affect anyone, unless they deliberately take it out of it's context and bring it into this centuary. The majority of populations tend to be sensitive and tolerant about these aspects.
10% of me sympathises and thinks it is ok to change the odd word that may indeed be inflamatory for a similar and slightly lesser inflamatory one. But not to rewrite large sections or delete it entirely.
When it comes to religious texts I have the same percentages although what God (if there is a God - and I believe there is) - actually 'said' will always be in dispute as there is no actual
*proof* except 2nd and 3rd hand. The consensus seems to be that because there is little actual proof and it's down to faith, then we all live and let live. Religions around the world seem to evolve at different stages, like the perception of a child. The more perceptive they are the more relaxed they will be about their beliefs because ultimately, God was supposed to give us free will to choose for ourselves, and their faith is between them and their God.
I think we do have to exercise sensitive perceptions about how sensitive others perceptions are, and compensate slightly and Loosly.

Great literature should be kept in its original form. Otherwise the true impact would be lost. Diluting the language for fear of offending a great number of people is no justification for changing emotive words. In the introduction the editor(s)could refer to the importance of sticking to the original. Let critics ruminate on the importance of 'colourful' words.

I grew up in the South in the 60's. Sadly my family used the N-word all the time. As a child I had friends in school that were black and as that young child, I was glad when my mother moved us west after my father died. Getting away from the negative effects of my family regarding race was of great benefit to me. But I learned an important lesson about equality of races from this book and have tried to foster that attitude in my children, making sure that they view all people as equals and only answerable to their individual actions.

When my oldest read the book, we talked about the my life as a child in the south and being able to reference the book as we talked really help me to teach my views to him.

I find this change deplorable and a lose of our past. Without the lessons I took from it, my life would be different. The removal of the words make it to easy to forget these sad times and lessens us and our history.

If your going to alter the past for the future generations, you might as well candy coat it all. Change it to say that slavery never happened, murder due to race doesn't exist and the genocides or WWII, Sudan and all the other race related atrocities mean nothing and have no lessons for mankind.

TOTN had the revising author on yesterday and he made some very good arguments for what he did and said that the introduction to the book repeatedly says that it has been revised from the original, so he is upfront and transparent in talking about it and in the revised book itself.

But I think that the book should not be revised, that it was a gem when it was first published and it ought to be kept in the original form.

I think that in general, revising history is a bad idea. I think that adding more and better context is the better way to go, explaining what the times were like and why Twain wrote the book the way he did.

And I recommend reading "The War Prayer" and "Letters From the Earth", in my opinion, Twain had a genius for presenting the opposing sides of current popular issues of the day.

YOu can find politically incorrect terms in many books. There wree very un PC movies made during WW2, if they were ever to air again, should we "edit" the offensive things out of them and change the meaning of the movies? I have a movie "first yank in tokyo" in mind, which is quite anti japanese in nature....

I haven't read it in a while, but in Bram Stoker's dracula, the author called homeless people "street arabs". Should the book be changed to be PC?

It shows how clueless the PC people are when they change books like Huck Finn. The book is anti racist in nature. Did they not even bother reading it?

And isn't even using the term "indian" not PC given the PC term is "native american" now? Are they referring to people from British India when they say Indian in a book from the mid/late 19th century?

Boy, I remember watching Davey Crockett when I was a kid, it was one of the most popular movies in the 1950s, and they sure said "injun" a lot. Will they modify it for TV to make it more PC?

@ 8. At 4:28pm on 06 Jan 2011, Jodie in Virginia wrote:

Jodie, I have had that problem in the past and I learned to copy, paste, and save my comment into another document before clicking on "Post Comment" here, so that if it get rejected I can revise, edit, and repost it.

Moderators, I know this comment is off topic but it might be helpful, so please consider that before you reject it.

Why is it that I can turn on the radio and hear the N word all the time in music, yet these "academics" are removing it from classical literature?

I'm curious what teachers/schools will do if they assign the PC version of this book to be read, and the student decides to read the non censored version they have at home, and are called on to read in class? Will the student get in trouble/suspended for reading aloud from the original, non censored version? Get in trouble for reading the exact words one of the greatest American authors used?

I fully support the replacement of these two words. The words are not changing the text and the content of the text per se. As long as the meaning is not affected the words should be replaced. The words have conotative meanings that marginalize a certain group of people which should be propagated in any shape or form.

We read Catcher in the Rye in high school, and Holden Caufield used the term "flit" to describe homosexuals, and not usually in a positive manner. Given the PCness now, and how that Navy Captain was relieved of command for making videos saying the word "fag", are we going to have to censor Catcher in the Rye too?

It's okay to edit/mutilate/destroy literature to be politically correct?

If the words ware derogatory when it was used in the book at the time it was published, the victims of those words had no way to protest that abuse. In keeping with that, the words should be removed.

However, if the words were perfectly acceptable to everyone at the time of publication, then the words should remain.

On the other hand, it is a literary work and changing words in it alters the author's intentions. I suspect there will never be a resolution to this issue.

I just tried to post a message on this site, but I received the following message -

"There has been a problem

n1gg3r"

Your own site is censoring the use of words!

Do you job, stop saying that the "n-word" was removed, the word that was removed was "n1gg3r".

Saying a word can never be offensive. Only its use in a aggressive, derogatory or otherwise offensive manner.

It's just a word.

@ 5 modernJan

Maybe you don't understand that those words have always been offensive and that they haven't just become offensive recently. The words have always been offensive, the offended just never had any power to do anything about it.

Your presenter has just been saying how he never uses "the word", "this word", "that word".

Should encyclopedias remove all references to ni**er?

You don't "think we need to use the word because it causes offense", how about stating that you mean no offense and you are trying to discuss a relevant topic and then say it.

If you discuss rape, should you avoid that word so as not to offend people who have been raped?

Can you imagine being in a class full of white student where the N work is used in a text? First as the only black kid in the class you will be very embarrassed, your teacher will definately cringe (just look at how your own guest are cringing when they use the word). I am sorry when Twain wrote the book the word was largely accepted, I can't believe your guest are explaining Mark twains mindset.

What's going on today? When Ros is on, we normally have every comment moderated in real-time.

I teach literature and we have just had the debate with my k 11 students on the 'n' word in Steinbeck's 'Of MIce and Men' as it is part of the Edexcel GCSE curriculum. We have seen that it was banned a few times from the US curriculum because of this word and we were totally in shock. What is the point of teaching literature if you can't tackle issues that the writers want to raise? It is interesting to bring up this discussion between students and we cannot understand how such problems can appear and be solved with the rewriting of the story...

Dear Reader,

Mark Twain wrote it like he wrote it. We should not change that.

Yours truly,

Lucitex

Though we read "Tom Sawyer" and "Huck Finn" unexpurgated in the 4th-6th grades of our public elementary school in the early '60s, one must take into acount the sensibility of one's audience. And in both books, the 'n' word appears wih such alarming frequency that even I cringe just thinking about it.

Still, for grade schoolers even "Les Miserables" and "Moby Dick" are available in abridged versions, not for language, but for length and complexity.

I've even practiced self-censorship in the book that I'm pitching. During a heated argument, one character shouts, "I don't care if the g-d pope is here!" Only the "g-d" was spelled out, and, though that's how most Americans talk, I felt badly about it. The Pope was frail and constantly ill at the time, and I didn't like the bad karma it implied. So I changed the g-d to the f-word, resulting in a phrase that is somewhat less realistic, but seemed to invite much less calamity for the Pope.

"Huck Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" will always be around in their original texts
-- even African Americans are divided on the ethics of the redact --
but thought should taken for young impressional minds still forming their own sense of self-worth and identity in the lower grades. Like "Moby Dick" and "Ulysses," the real things can be saved for college.

I couldn't believe my eyes today, when I read this in the paper. What's next? Some politically correct self-appointed Word Police Agent is going to revise Shakespeare?

Leaving aside the act of rewriting literature, is the N word in Huck Finn used in a vulgar and dehuminizing way? We know it is used in rap music very consistently nowadays, yet I don't see these Word Police frantically rewriting that music. Now would anyone take kindly to that sort of zeal.

Are we sliding into the same abyss as Islamism? Let's put a brake on such nonsense, please. Let's quit the sanctimonious jaw-jutting.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I don't see how the term "injun" is offensive, but "cajun" is not? Injun was just how the lesser educated people pronounced "Indian". The word "Cajun" is just how people, especially even the Acadians themselves after they were removed from the later to be maritime provinces by the British, pronounced Acadia.

Why is one perfectly fine but the other isn't PC?

Why do the PC police only look after the "interests" of some groups and not all?

@ Karine, post 41.
You bring up a fascinating example with of Mice and Men, less because of the racism which will inevitably be there in any American literature of that period that presents a true picture that society, warts and all, but because of the attitudes to people with mental/intellectual disabilities.
One of Steinbeck’s other great works The Grapes of Wrath presents an appalling picture of the way rural working class Americans (regardless of colour), victims of the dust bowl, were treated during the depression and the very bitterness felt by the writer over this sheer inhumanity, something that happened only 70-odd years ago, is enshrined in his powerful language, not least in the derogatory term “Oakie”.
This book, with its language intact, is another example of literature that should be studied as a salutary lesson to all those who would today claim that any kind of workers’ protection and welfare provision is somehow “un-American”.

In my opinion one the most horrible and egregious examples of revising books was around 230 CE when a fellow named Irenaeus decided that the "big four" gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were the only ones he wanted to survive and be taught in the Bible, and then he gathered up all of the other gospels in existence and had them destroyed by burning.

Fortunately, the Thomas Gospel was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls during the twentieth century and shows an incredible different view of what the character Jesus taught about "God", who god is, and where god resides.

Essentially Jesus taught, well, we're it, all of us, each of us, God and Heaven is/are within us and there is not some supernatural being at all. Go ahead and read The Thomas Gospel for yourself, and think it over for yourself.

So it looks to me like Irenaeus was one of the greatest liars of all time, lying by the sin of Omission, by revising the Jesus teachings by destroying many of them and leaving them out of the Bible.

@ Pattie in Cape Coral
Meant to reply to this yesterday, but the moderators were obviously on strike ;-) so gave up on the blog.
I thought you were going to say your daughter was being accused of racism for laughing at poor old Basil’s appalling treatment of Manuel: “he’s from Barcelona” (played by English actor par excellence Andrew Sachs). Of course it doesn’t take the brains of Einstein (or in this case Wittgenstein perhaps) to see the satire dripping out of that Cleese/Booth masterpiece ridiculing the entire Brit class system and all the angst it caused the middle-aged petit bourgeoisie in the 70s.
How about the “don’t mention the war” episode for utter non PC-ness?
The funny thing is that when this show was screened in Spain, Manuel morphed into an Italian, maybe we Europeans have finally grown out of such hyper-sensitivities.

Silly, just silly!
I was so sad when Disney stopped releasing Song Of The South.

It happens all the time!
Not only books, but a great part of European and world history have been manipulated to fit in with modern day political thinking. I am always amazed how some authors describe the times and conditions I have lived through, although they were not even born at the time and have their little knowledge through filtered sources.
Should the famous British book “Ingoldsby Legends” also be re-written, because the Rev. Richard Harris Barham lived during an age in which the state Israel did not exist? Some of his comments could almost certainly deemed to be anti-Semitic by today’s ridiculous do/know-betters. Nevertheless his work – like that of Charles Dickens – reflects the way of thinking that existed in his years of life.
It would be better for young authors to write new books, instead of spoiling those of other people.