So Much Drama

Authors are as subject to misunderstandings as we all are. It is highly possible that out of 400 pages a few words end up conveying the wrong ideas. But, when said word appears 200 times it is naive to call it a mistake and ignorant to meddle with it. Disagreeing with the use of the language in a novel expresses dislike for the novel itself, for it is one of the components of the work, sometimes far beyond content.

I wouldn’t use “nigger” in my writing and much less in my daily experience, strongly disapproving of anyone who tries to do so in a demeaning manner. It is disrespectful and demeaning to flag a group of people with an offensive term, but isn’t in equally disrespectful to forget their past as one of the building blocks for humanity. A whole community did not go through slavery and discrimination for centuries to be forgotten in the diplomacy of modernity. Dr Sarah Churchwell expresses a similar point as she argues such “word is totemic because it encodes all of the violence of slavery.”

In reading The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn we find this argument even more absurd. Mark twain not only evades any offences as consequence of racism, but he exposes a critique to this behavior. We find Huck’s adventures and his plans intriguing, but tend to forget that they all revolve around Jim’s freedom and his dislike for racial misconceptions. When Tom Sawyer describes the typical prisoner he explains: “they wouldn’t use a goose-quill if they had it. It ain’t regular.” In the same manner, Mark Twain imitates the real language as part of narrating a story with historical context. He could have replaced “nigger” with a vast number of words, but “it ain’t regular.”

The method for introducing this classic of literature into scholar curriculum is not a change of words, but a change of mentality. With a simple introduction to a context, and minimal historical understanding, any reader should feel unaffected by Mark Twain’s vocabulary.