Taking A Stand: An Ohio English Teacher Has Removed All the N-Words From ‘Huckleberry Finn’ And Put Them Into Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’

In recent years, Mark Twain’s celebrated novel The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn has become pretty infamous for its characters’ frequent use of the N-word as they converse with one another in the 19th-century American South. While this has occasionally caused controversy when the book was taught in classrooms, one incredible woman might have just solved the problem once and for all: An English teacher in Ohio has removed all the N-words from Huckleberry Finn and put them into Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Amazing. This badass teacher really knows how to get things done!

Before assigning Huck Finn to her 10th-grade class, English teacher Sarah Williams painstakingly identified all 219 appearances of the N-word in the book, cut them out by hand, and reinserted them into Mary Shelley’s gothic horror novel Frankenstein. While Frankenstein is now a veritable minefield of racism, thanks to Williams’ fearless initiative, Twain’s novel is now completely epithet-free, and she can assign it to her students without any fear of complications.

“When the kids in my class read Huck Finn, they won’t find a single instance of the N-word, though on the other hand, if a student were to open up to any random page of Frankenstein, they’d find pretty much a ceaseless barrage of racial slurs, which are made all the more offensive by their lack of justification or context,” Williams explained proudly. “Also, Frankenstein is a much shorter book than Huck Finn, so the concentration of N-words is way higher, and there are several points in the book where Dr. Frankenstein says the N-word 48 times in a row for two pages without reprieve. Still, that’s a small price to pay, since Huck Finn doesn’t even say the N-word once.”

Truly inspiring. It’s amazing to see that there are teachers out there who are willing to take a stand for what they believe in. Nice job, Ms. Williams! The world needs more proactive teachers like you!