Huckleberry Finn Argumentative Analysis

In an editorial published by The New York Times, the author sees the altering of Mark Twain’s language within The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as an desecration of a rich piece of literature, and does not approve of a new “sanitized” edition of the novel. Although the intention of the novel’s editor was to replace certain words with less offensive phrases, the article’s author sees the replacement of “nigger” with “slave” as a corruption of a historical language. The “n-word” will be identified as the worser term and the substituted word will be viewed as having no relation to the wickedness of slavery. The author argues that the beauty and significance of “Huckleberry Finn” is its ability to precisely interpret the detailed dialect of the time period, and would be severely damaged if another writer would transform its original context.

Although the author is not known, the New York Times is a well-known newspaper that has been known for its credibility and expertise, so it can be safe to assume that the writer’s points are valid.
However, the editorial uses a simple, yet effective analysis to explain that “most readers, textual purists or not, will be horrified.” Mr. Gribben was not the author of the novel, and could not reach the same “unprecedented accuracy” of Mark Twain’s writings. Twain had a specific purpose for everything that he wrote, and only he could reach that level of ingenuity and cleverness.
Twain knew exactly what he was doing, and although he may have lived in a time where the “n-word” was a derogatory term, he wanted his readers to completely grasp the atrocities of slavery, and could not present his message with a safer vocabulary. All writers have a specific purpose that cannot be exactly portrayed by another