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What a student thinks about the n word, "I think if the reader understands the context that the word was used, then it’s okay. Altering Twain’s novel is not one-hundred percent necessary because the word helps convey the different time period. I can see both sides of the argument though, and if people feel more comfortable reading the censored version then I don’t see why they can’t."

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A new US edition of Mark Twain's classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to be published with a notable language alteration: all instances of the offensive racial term "nigger" are to be expunged.

The word occurs more than 200 times in Huckleberry Finn, first published in 1884, and its 1876 precursor, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which tell the story of the boys' adventures along the Mississippi river in the mid-19th century. In the new edition, the word will be replaced in each instance by "slave". The word "injun" will also be replaced in the text.

The new edition's Alabama-based publisher, NewSouth books, says the development is a "bold move compassionately advocated" by the book's editor, Twain scholar Dr Alan Gribben of Auburn University, Montgomery. It will have the effect, the publisher claims, of replacing "two hurtful epithets" in order to "counter the 'pre-emptive censorship' that Dr Gribben observes has caused these important works of literature to fall off curriculum lists worldwide."

Gribben said he had decided on the move because over decades of teaching Twain, and reading sections of the text aloud, he had found himself recoiling from uttering the racial slurs in the words of the young protagonists. "The n-word possessed, then as now, demeaning implications more vile than almost any insult that can be applied to other racial groups," he said. "As a result, with every passing decade this affront appears to gain rather than lose its impact."

"We may applaud Twain's ability as a prominent American literary realist to record the speech of a particular region during a specific historical era," Gribben added, "but abusive racial insults that bear distinct connotations of permanent inferiority nonetheless repulse modern-day readers."

Twain himself was a passionate critic of American racism, and donated money to a number of civil rights organisations including the nascent NAACP, as well as ironically critiquing prejudice in both Huckleberry Finn and the later novel Puddn'head Wilson. But controversy over his language is not new: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn came in fifth on the American Library Association's list of the most "banned or challenged" books in the US in the 1990s (it had dropped in the 14th spot by the 2000s).

But the idea of changing the language in the novel in order to boost its popularity is still viewed with bafflement in many quarters. Dr Sarah Churchwell, senior lecturer in US literature and culture at the University of East Anglia, said the development made her "incandescent" with anger. "The fault lies with the teaching, not the book. You can't say 'I'll change Dickens so it is compatible with my teaching method'. Twain's books are not just literary documents but historical documents, and that word is totemic because it encodes all of the violence of slavery. The point of the book is that Huckleberry Finn starts out racist in a racist society, and stops being racist and leaves that society. These changes mean the book ceases to show the moral development of his character. They have no merit and are misleading to readers. The whole point of literature is to expose us to different ideas and different eras, and they won't always be nice and benign. It's dumbing down."

Geff Barton, head of King Edward's School in Bury St Edmunds, described the idea of changing Twain's language as "slightly crackpot". "It seems depressing that we are so squeamish that we can't credit youngsters with seeing the context for texts. Are we going to teach a sanitised version of The Merchant of Venice? What I would want to do is to explore issues of how language changes in context and culture," he said. Barton added that if Twain was taught less in the UK now, it was because since the national curriculum was introduced in 1989, the emphasis in English teaching was largely on works from the English literary canon rather than from America. "While we still teach To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men, Twain might just have fallen under the radar," he said.|
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New Huckleberry Finn edition censors 'n-word'

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A new US edition of Mark Twain's classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to be published with a notable language alteration: all instances of the offensive racial term "nigger" are to be expunged.

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Some people say that changing the word "nigger" to "slave" is wrong because like ends the great friendship between Huck and Jim.

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Question: Why does changing the word nigger to slave affect the book Huckleberry Finn?

Research: What the articles say is that the word slave is less offending than the word nigger. However, the word slave most people think of a black person when they hear slave. So really it kind of doesn't change anything because that might offend someone.

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So, Mark Twain stays in the news even 100 years after his death. First, with the initial volume of his Autobiography, finally published in the form planned by the author. Second, with the controversy stirred up by a "new" edition of Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in which the offensive racial epithets "injun" and "nigger" are replaced by "Indian" and "slave" respectively.

Undoubtedly the use of the word "nigger" - surely the most inflammatory word in the English language - makes Huckleberry Finn a tricky novel to teach. The book has recently repeatedly been judged as unsuitable for schoolchildren to study in the US educational system - and one can fully understand the feelings of anger and humiliation that many African American children and parents feel at having such a word repeatedly spoken in the classroom (the word appears 219 times in Twain's book).

But that is not necessarily a reason for replacing it with a gentler (bowdlerised) term. Twain was undoubtedly anti-racist. Friends with African American educator Booker T Washington, he co-chaired the 1906 Silver Jubilee fundraiser at Carnegie Hall for the Tuskegee Institute - a school run by Washington in Alabama to further "the intellectual and moral and religious life of the [African American] people". He also personally helped fund one of Yale Law School's first African American students, explaining: "We have ground the manhood out of them [African Americans], and the shame is ours, not theirs, and we should pay for it." And his repeated use of that derogatory term in Huckleberry Finn is absolutely deliberate, ringing with irony. When Huck's father, poor and drunken white trash by any standard, learns that "a free nigger ... from Ohio; a mulatter, most as white as a white man ... a p'fessor in a college" is allowed to vote, he reports: "Well, that let me out ... I says I'll never vote agin ... [A]nd the country may rot for all me." It is very clear here whose racial side Twain is on. Similarly when Aunt Sally asks if anyone was hurt in a reported riverboat explosion, and Huck himself answers "No'm. Killed a nigger," she replies, "Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt." The whole force of the passage lies in casual acceptance of the African American's dehumanised status, even by Huck, whose socially-inherited language and way of thinking stands firm despite all he has learnt in his journey down-river of the humanity, warmth and affection of the escaped slave Jim - the person who truly acts as a father to him.

Language counts here. As Twain himself said: "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." I respect the motivation of Alan Gribben, the senior Twain scholar who is responsible for the new edition, and who wishes to bring the book back into easy classroom use, believing "that a significant number of school teachers, college instructors, and general readers will welcome the option of an edition of Twain's ... novels that spares the reader from a racial slur that never seems to lose its vitriol."

But it's exactly that vitriol and its unacceptable nature that Twain intended to capture in the book as it stands. Perhaps this is not a book for younger readers. Perhaps it is a book that needs careful handling by teachers at high school and even university level as they put it in its larger discursive context, explain how the irony works, and the enormous harm that racist language can do. But to tamper with the author's words because of the sensibilities of present-day readers is unacceptable. The minute you do this, the minute this stops being the book that Twain wrote.

Peter Messent is the author of the Cambridge Introduction to Mark Twain
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Censoring Mark Twain's 'n-words' is unacceptable

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So, Mark Twain stays in the news even 100 years after his death. First, with the initial volume of his Autobiography, finally published in the form planned by the author. Second, with the controversy stirred up by a "new" edition of Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in which the offensive racial epithets "injun" and "nigger" are replaced by "Indian" and "slave" respectively.

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I believe the the word nigger should stay in the book because it's a very important part of the book if you would say slave then it would ruin the book the word teaches what the word really means. But when you think about it could be offended by it.

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Mark Twain's, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a well-known American classic. This book is loved and hated. Loved for its satire, and tone, hated for the over use of the word, Nigger. Many people look down upon Twain's use of the "n" word, and say that it should be replaced with the word slave. Although the "n" word may give offense to some, replacing it would be wrong and offensive to Mark Twain. This has created conflict that has not been solved entirely yet, because many people are very judgmental towards the meaning of this word today.

Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University said that he solved the problem of racial conflict by taking out the "n" word and replacing it with slave. In doing, this Gribben has done a huge offense to Twain. Twain was not doing anything wrong at all; he was simply using the word that fit into the dialogue for his time. In his day and age, everyone used the "n" word, even the blacks themselves. Today though, blacks are easily offended by the use of the "n" word, but say it all the time. If they were all right with it then, why aren't they now? Would blacks prefer to be called a slave in the book instead? No, they would not.

People are always going to find something that offends them in a book, whether it is the language the book uses, actions that the characters do, or their thoughts. No one is satisfied. Everyone has an opinion, and that is what makes a book popular. That is how a book becomes a masterpiece. Not everyone is going to like a book, but that does not mean that we have the right to take out the 'rude comments' in every single book. If someone does not like a book then they should not read it. There are times though when one will read a book and not quite understand the meaning behind the words used, like in Huckleberry Finn. Twain uses a lot of satire in his books, many people do not recognize the satire in Mark Twains writing, and are easily offended by his humor, not knowing its satire. It is not our decision whether we change Twain's book or not, it is his.

Removing the "n" word cannot change the past and never will, although some people think that it can soothe things over with the black people. This word can be offensive but it is appropriate for depicting the slave's painful background. It allows people to look beyond the color and see blacks as our equals, because there are still racist people in America and many people aren't raised to be 'color blind' like others. With out this word how can we know what it was like to live as a slave, and truly know what being a slave felt like? Do the black people even know what it was like to be a slave? Most likely not. But then again how can they? They were not there when the slaves were abused, they know just as much as we do; and yet they are still offended by a word that was used almost a century ago.

If anyone is offended it's Mark Twain. He wrote the book, he should be the one to decide Huckleberry Finn's fate. This book has done more for the American people than we know. It has given us insight on what people's lives were actually like back in Huck's time, how they acted towards slaves and each other; and what it was like to grow up in an environment where slaves were everywhere. H.L. Mencken said, "... I believe that Mark Twain has a clearer vision of life, and that he came nearer to its elementals and was less deceived by its false appearances that any other American who has ever presumed to manufacture generalizations..." Mark Twain knew what kind of effect his book would leave on the American people. It left us hungry and wanting more of his work. What Mark Twain did not know, was that the effect would be wasted on something like the feud of replacing the "n" word with slave. Mark Twain would leave the "n" word in Huckleberry Finn, and we should too in honor of his astounding American classic.

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Should the "N" Word be Replaced With Slave In Huck Finn?

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Mark Twain's, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a well-known American classic. This book is loved and hated. Loved for its satire, and tone, hated for the over use of the word, Nigger. Many people look down upon Twain's use of the "n" word,