A comment upon the need to remove offensive language from literary or historical works by creating an alternate context where the language doesn't matter to the story.
HUCKLEBERRY FINN IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
There’s been a lot of discussion about the negative language or stereotypical representations found in much of the world’s great literature and art. Most of the discussions center on removal of the negative language, something I think would be a terrible thing to do for many reasons. This is not because I don’t agree that one of our most important obligations to the world is to continuously take things to a higher place. In my life, I have always attempted to aid in the effort to leave behind the ugliness of racism, misogyny, cultural bias, and general unfairness that has darkened so much of the world in its evolution to the present and continues to plague us today. We must always continue to pursue positive change in the world, but we must not forget the arc of change that brought us here and will take us to tomorrow. The same kind of analysis has been applied to question the contributions of many of those regarded by history as great. While I understand the desire to analyze greatness from the more advanced standards of the day, I think it’s a monumental mistake to ignore context and to refuse to recognize the realities of history. However, that doesn’t mean one can’t take a modern approach to a historically great literary masterpiece or work of art. Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” is one of the literary masterpieces that is often used as an example of great literature that contains offensive language, but removal of the language would impact the power of the story, and removing the story from our lists of great literature would minimalize the reality of what people lived through during the period of history when this was written. I would never consider either alternative, but perhaps we could create a version of Huck that omits the objectionable language in a way that gives the same effect as if the language were left unchanged. The offensive language wouldn’t fit at all in this alternate universe because things there were very different than they are in this universe. Things there were almost the opposite of how things progressed in this universe.
In this story, Huckleberry Finn’s Alternate Universe is a place where genetic mutations and principles of natural selection resulted in the first human beings arising from the primordial slime in the northernmost sections of Europe instead of the interior of Africa as it did in this world. The Great Diaspora occurs, but the migration is from the northernmost plains where natural selection created the first human beings, the male and female relatives we all share because we’re all descended from them even though they may not have even known each other. In this story, tribal societies that were the first in the world occur in northern Europe instead of Africa as they clearly did in this world. In the alternate universe, the first evidence of art and culture is found in the ruins of ancient civilizations that flourished on the cold northern plains instead of in Africa as it did in this world.
In the alternative universe, natural selection in these cold northern environs favored those who did well in cold weather in landscapes covered with white snow. As a result, most of the earliest humans were white-skinned and blue-eyed. In the alternate universe, every human being is descended from these light-skinned northern Europeans just like every human being in this world is descended from the earliest dark-skinned humans of ancient Africa. The family of humanity arose from the plains of the north instead of the plains of the south as it did in this world.
The tribes that migrated south and east and west changed physically as time passed. Natural selection favored darker skin colors over the lighter color that was the skin color of all of the first humans. As the tribes that migrated south advanced over the years, power became centered in matrilineal descendants, and women became the chiefs. Men were relegated to secondary roles. Only women could inherit or vote in later democratic societies. Women were dominant in all matters. Men often had to use their sexual role as a means of making it in the world. Though women gave birth, men were the caretakers of the children. Men stayed home while women went out in the world to discuss strategies or create great art or make scientific discoveries. The men who did enter into the public or scientific or business arenas were considered an anomaly. Many times they did not receive credit for their discoveries. They were not recognized for their abilities, and often the brightest men were placed in secondary roles.
Even though later history, which was written by the dark-skinned ruling class, refused to recognize that the contributions of the early white, tribes, the earliest people clearly did create great works of art. It was from them that the concept of art arose. It was there in the snow that languages developed and early religions thrived. The reality that earliest civilizations were white-skinned was often ignored in historically great literary and artistic works which depicted all of the great accomplishments to be those of dark-skinned women, the upper class of people who ruled the world.
The Age of the Machine brought great change to the world. Africa, Australia, and the Americas fought each other for control of the planet as they knew it. Women remained the political, scientific, business, literary, and artistic leaders. Dark-skinned people were the rulers and light-skinned people were treated as second or third class citizens if they were treated as citizens at all.
A great age of colonialism took world rulers back to the northern forests and plains of England and Europe where they found a culture unaffected by the Age of Machines. Tribes of white-skinned indigenous natives worshiped nature figures and still lived a nomadic life, cooking over campfires, hunting for their food. Women were relegated to second class citizenship in these primitive cultures. They were frequently at war with each other, and, if captured, the enemy natives were often either killed or enslaved.
The white indigenous natives were captured and enslaved by the ruling societies on the planet. Sometimes one tribe of white natives captured members of another tribe and sold them to black or brown slave traders. The newly enslaved white natives were transported to other continents to be used to work in the fields or provide service in the big houses where the ruling class lived. Owning white slaves became a symbol of prosperity and an important part of the agricultural economy in the Land of America, one of the greatest world leaders.
By the nineteenth century, the world at large was beginning to wake up to the idea that slavery was an abomination which should not be permitted, but in the Land of America, slavery continued. It was especially devastating that the continuation of slavery based on something as insignificant as skin color should remain a major part of the culture in the Land of America. That nation was the first in the world to claim to be governed by and for the people as a whole instead of by the entitled nobility. Even so, black women politicians from the agricultural areas where slavery was most popular worked hard to continue the practice. Some claimed that it was an evil necessity and that abolishing it would destroy agriculture. Others claimed that the Bible supported it as a proper practice that was good for the slaves who were incapable of living without direction from masters. Brave black abolitionists in the north fought against slavery’s continuance. It was a divisive subject that would lead ultimately to civil war in the country. After the civil war resulted in the abolition of slavery, white people were still treated as second class citizens for many years. Laws were passed to prevent white people from exercising their right to vote. The harm done to the white population by the black and brown ruling class would continue for well over a hundred years even after slavery was abolished. Any time progress was made by the minority white population, the ruling class would enact new laws to tamp down any real hope for meaningful change.
Mark Twain, one of the greatest literary figures of the nineteenth century in the Land of America, wrote a poignant tale about a young black girl, Huckleberry, who was torn between helping a white slave to freedom and doing what she had always been taught, that she should respect the property rights of others. It becomes known as one of the greatest literary works of all time.
OVERVIEW OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
In the novel, Huckleberry is the poor child of a drunken bum mother, but she had the good luck to find hidden pirate treasure with her friend Toma Sawyer. She is taken in by a kind but very staid man, the widower Douglas, who lives with his brother Mister Watson. Huckleberry quickly tires of the confines of life in a prim and proper home after her wild adventures with Toma, but she realizes the advantages of her home with the two old men when her drunken Ma shows back up and claims custody. Ma finally kidnaps Huckleberry and hides her in a dirty cabin where she repeatedly beats her daughter senseless. Huckleberry fakes her own death, spreading hog blood all over the cabin, and runs away to an island in the midst of the great Mississippi River. On the island, she meets Whitey Jem, a female slave who has run away from Mr. Watson. She learns that Jem has run because Mr. Watson threatened to sell her downriver to a plantation where she will be treated horribly and separated from her husband and children. Huck is torn. She still feels some affection for the Widower Douglas and Mister Watson. She believes Jem to be Mister Watson’s rightful property. She has been taught all of her life that white people are lesser beings, similar to a horse or other animal that a person might own, even a man. But there is some place deep inside that seems to understand on another level altogether that Jem is a human being just like her and deserves to be free. The universe around her seems to be picking away at the stupidity of her feelings on the subject of slavery. Things keep happening to prevent her from doing that which her brain tells her is the right thing to do: turn Jem over to the authorities so that she will be returned to her rightful owner, Mister Watson. Huck agonizes about contributing to the loss of Mister Watson’s property by not turning her in to the authorities. But Huck and Jem have a good life on the island. Huck takes no action to cause Jem to be returned to Mister Watson. Then Huck discovers that people in town suspect Jem is hiding on the island and are coming out to capture her and take her back to Mister Watson. She knows in her mind that would be what the law and the morals of her community would agree was the right thing to happen. But instead she begins to plan to leave the island so that Jem won’t be found.
During a big storm, a raft floats to the shore, and the two take off to head north to Free States where Jem will be free of slavery and can avoid the terrible fate of being sold south. Huck continues to be torn by this feeling that she should return Jem to her rightful owner and the desire to help Jem make it to the free north. It almost seems like the weather and natural flow of life are pushing them north toward freedom for Jem, as if the universe is telling Huck that finding freedom for Jem is the right thing to do.
They lose their way and overshoot a free city where they could book passage on a steamboat north. As they discuss what they should do next, Jem cries out her thanks to Huck and describes the feelings she has being so close to freedom. She looks at the sky and promises she will return south and steal or buy her husband and children and take them to freedom too.
Huck becomes uncomfortable at the thought that Jem might go back and take the other slaves too. She feels deep guilt that she is taking her benefactor’s property. She decides she will go ashore the next day and disclose Jem’s presence to the authorities. She happily drifts off to sleep. The next day, she tells Jem she will go ashore to find out where they are and takes off to do what she’d decided to do the night before. She begins once more to feel the terrible tear in her conscience between the feelings she has when Jem talks about the joy of freedom and the anguish she feels because she is depriving Mister Watson of his rightful property. Then she meets two women in a boat on the river. The women are searching for runaway slaves. She has to make a decision. The heart and soul of the story is the anguish she feels in this battle between what she believes is the right thing to do, return Jem to her owner, and what the natural phenomena of the world such as the weather, and the feelings in her heart, the seat of her soul, seem to be telling her, that Jem should be free.
EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 16
This is an excerpt from the book taken from the section where Huck is responding to Jem’s statements about going back to take her husband and children:
It most froze me to hear such talk. She wouldn’t ever dared to talk such talk in her life before. See what a difference it made in her the minute she judged she was about to be free. It was according to that old saying, “Give a whitey an inch and she’ll take an ell.” Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this whitey, who I had as good as helped run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying she’d steal her children---children that belonged to a woman I didn’t even know; a woman that hadn’t ever done me no harm.
I was sorry to hear Jem say that, it was such a lowering of her. My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever until at last I says to it, “Let up on me---it ain’t too late yet---I’ll paddle ashore at first light and tell.” I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a light and sort of singing to myself. By and by, one showed.
Jem sings out, “We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and crack yo’ heels. Dat’s de good ole Cairo at las’. I jis know it is.”
I says, “I’ll take the canoe and go and see, Jem. It mightn’t be, you know.”
She jumped and got the canoe ready, and put her old coat on the bottom for me to set on; and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off and says: “Pooty soon I’ll be a-shout’n’ for joy, en I’ll say it’s all on accounts o’ Huck; I’s a free woman and I couldn’ ever ben if it hadn’ ben fo Huck. Huck done it. I won’t ever forgit you, Huck. You’s de bes’ fren’ Jem’s ever had and you’s de ONLY fren’ ole Jem’s got now.”
I was paddling along, all in a sweat to tell on her; but when she says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went along all slow then, and I warn’t right down certain whether I was glad I started or whether I warn’t. When I was fifty yards off, Jem says:
“Dar you go, de ole true Huck; de on’y black genlwoman dat ever kep’ her promise to ole’ Jem.”
Well, I just felt sick. I GOT to do it. I can’t get OUT of it. Right then, along comes a skiff with two women in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped.
One of them says, “What’s that yonder?”
“A piece of a raft,” I says.
“Do you belong on it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Any women on it?”
“Only one.”
“Well, there’s five whiteys run off tonight from above the head of the bend; is your woman black or white?”
I didn’t answer right prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn’t come. I tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn’t woman enough---hadn’t the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening so I just give up trying and up and says, “She’s black.”
“I reckon we’ll go see for ourselves.”
“I wish you would because it’s ma that’s there, and I wish you’d help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. She’s sick and so is pa and Maryann.”
“Oh, the devil, girl. We’re in a hurry, but I s’pose we’ve got to. Come buckle to your paddle, and let’s get along.”
I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made a stroke or two, I says:
“Ma’ll be so obleeged, I can tell you. Everybody goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can’t do it by myself.”
“Well, that’s infernal mean. Odd too. Say, girl, what’s the matter with your ma?”
“It’s the---well---it ain’t anything much.”
They stopped pulling. It warn't but a mighty little ways to the raft, now. One says:
"Girl, that's a lie. What is the matter with your ma? Answer up square, now, and it'll be the better for you."
"I will, ma’am, I will, honest- but don't leave us, please. It's the- the- gentlewomen, if you'll only pull ahead, and let me heave you the head-line, you won't have to come a-near the raft- please do."
"Set her back, Joni, set her back!" says one. They backed water. "Keep away, girl- keep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind has blowed it to us. Your ma's got the smallpox, and you know it precious well. Why didn't you come out and say so? Do you want to spread it all over?"
"Well," says I, a-blubbering, "I've told everybody before, and then they just went away and left us."
"Poor devil, there's something in that. We are right down sorry for you, but we- well, hang it, we don't want the smallpox, you see. Look here, I'll tell you what to do. Don't you try to land by yourself, and you'll smash everything to pieces. You float along down about twenty miles and you'll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river. It will be long after sun-up, then, and when you ask for help, you tell them your folks are all down with chills and fever. Don't be a fool again, and let people guess what is the matter. Now we're trying to do you a kindness; so you just put twenty miles between us, that's a good boy. It wouldn't do any good to land yonder where the light is- it's only a wood-yard. Say- I reckon your mother's poor, and I'm bound to say she's in pretty hard luck. Here- I'll put a twenty dollar gold piece on this board, and you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you, but my queendom! It won't do to fool with smallpox, don't you see?"
"Hold on, Parker," says the other woman, "here's a twenty to put on the board for me. Good-bye, girl, you do as Madame Parker told you, and you'll be all right."
"That's so, my girl- good-bye, good-bye. If you see any runaway whitey, you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it."
"Good-bye, ma’am," says I, "I won't let no runaway whiteys get by me if I can help it."
Wait. I created this alternate universe that gives a background for the tale of Huckleberry Finn that maintains the strength of the plot without the offensive language. There is anguish in the mind of a young human being trying to make a moral choice between what the civilized world is telling her is right and what the natural world and her natural self is telling her is right. I removed the objectionable language and kept the drama and purpose of the story intact. But … like Huckleberry in the story, I can’t get around it. My conscience is rising up and saying, “This version is just as full of inappropriate subject matter. You don’t use the words that would push buttons in this world, that true . But in the alternate universe, the language I used would be equally offensive because it is grounded in hypocrisy, racial prejudice, and hatred. Whitey is a term that is meant to be demeaning and ugly. Using it would hurt feelings of the minority population and people sensitive to the ugliness of racism in the alternate universe. I didn’t accomplish anything here. I need to change it again and remove the real evil in the story, the hatred itself, not just a word that carries the power of and is an agent of the racism that drips from the letters of such a word. Only by proceeding with true love could the problems of racism be erased from the world.
So, I’ll try again to do this story in a way that erases the ugliness of the language and the facticity that is evident in its use:
EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 16
This is an excerpt from the book right after Jem has said she wants to go back and bring her children and husband with them on their trip:
It most froze me to hear such talk. I mean, after all, we took this trip to get away from it all. It’s not like the husband and the children won’t be there when we get back. They’re probably having the time of their lives without Jem around to force the kids to do their homework. And she knows how much this trip means to me. She wouldn’t have ever dared to talk such talk in her life before. See what a difference it made in her the minute she judged she was about to be free from the drudgery of everyday life for just a moment. It was according to that old saying, “Give a friend an inch and she’ll take you with her on the journey of your life.” Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this best friend, who I had as good as helped run away from her every-day life, coming right out flat-footed and saying she’d rather have her children along for the ride---children and a husband I didn’t even really know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm but would definitely change the whole atmosphere of the trip.
At first, I was sorry to hear Jem say that, it was such a lowering of her to think she had to drag the children and husband along instead of just making it two women on a ride for freedom from the banality of everyday life. We were headed down the river to see the greatest show in the world. What happened to the free-spirited girl I knew before she got hitched? My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever until at last I says to it, “Let up on me---it ain’t too late yet---I’ll paddle ashore at first light and bring the family back.” I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a light and sort of singing to myself. By and by, one showed.
Jem sings out, “Oh look, Huck, we’re safe! There’s my house not too far away there in the mist. Jump up and crack your heels. We can get the children and still make the show.”
I says, “I’ll take the canoe and go and see, Jem. It mightn’t be, you know. Things look different from the water.”
She jumped and got the canoe ready, and put her old coat on the bottom for me to set on; and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off and says: “Pretty soon I’ll be a-shout’n’ for joy, and I’ll say it’s all on account of Huck; I’ll be free of the doldrums and have my family with me too, and it wouldn’t ever have happened if it hadn’t been for Huck. Huck done it. I won’t ever forget you, Huck. You’re the best friend Jem’s ever had.”
Okay, so now I’ve removed the really offensive thing about the story, the racism and hatred of other that was the reality of the timeframe. But that changes the story from a dramatic portrayal of the reality faced by people of color in nineteenth century America. It changes a great novel into the stuff of a sweet tweet or Facebook post about two friends who include family as part of a fun weekend, or maybe a Hallmark movie of the week. Real literature moves the progression of humankind towards its higher state of mind. Forgetting the past makes the possibility of a better future harder to imagine. Everything needs to be examined in context and with consideration of purpose. Huck Finn must stay Huck Finn, always and forever.
An article for our time. I was very pleased with the effort you put in to try to create the exact opposite alternate universe where black is white and white is black. South is North and North and South. It works to a point, but I believe that you were overly repetitive in the way that you presented it.
On the other hand, the editing of Chapter 16 of Huckleberry Finn reminded me of why I loved the book and the movie, so much. Written by someone who experienced that life, language and lifestyle, to write about it in a very authentic way. Tom Sawyer is so bland and uninteresting by comparison.
My concern is that even words like, "ain't," so commonly used by uneducated people that it has become listed in dictionaries, are now being removed as inappropriate by computer spellcheckers and word police.
My thoughts are that the King James version of the Bible that many believe is, "the truth," was a cleaned up version of the earlier Bible that was offensive to the king and English sensibility at that time. I have some sermons from the Archbishop of Canterbury dating back to 1777. Reading them is quite offensive to my ears with the words spouted by men of the clergy then. Would I change those old writings… No!
Dreamin’ Dreams is more than a collection of stories; it is a celebration of Irish life, adventure, and the unforgettable characters who make growing up in Ireland a journey worth remembering.
Part Three in the Mu Series - Sarah Thompson reluctantly abandons her desperate search for her soul mate on Maui and returns to her Montana hometown. Her brother has had a terrible accident...
