Wednesday, January 5, 2011
IR Blog Post 4 - New York Times Books
Publisher Takes n-word out of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
In the book. The n-word is used a total of 219 times. It reflects the social attitudes of an era gone by. Now, the publisher NewSouth Books plans to release a new edition of the book where the n-word has been replaced by the word "slave". The move was first suggested by an English professor at Auburn University who always hesitated before reading the word aloud. Could this move to sanitize books literally change the lessons of history? Will this move of political correctness spread to other books? Keith Staskiewicz from Entertainment Weekly says that the move is good because it will expand access to the book across wider audiences.
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I believe that they should not have replaced the n word with slave. Although the term can be offensive for some, it is a part of history and taking away the word takes away from the attitude of that era.
ReplyDeleteTaking the n-word out of this book strips it of its purpose. The word, and its use in the book, is meant to make people uncomfortable. The book is a novel about race relations, it's SUPPOSED to make people feel like something is wrong with not only the word but the ideology behind it. Who benefits from this bowdlerization? The author wouldn't care about making more money as he's probably a bit more concerned with decomposition. Surely, the "wider audiences" the book is meant to appeal to can't include children. The book wasn't meant for children to begin with!
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