Roald Dahl and Censorship

We have written recently about library censorship, school libraries in particular, where angry people, or worse yet, the government has stepped in to censor books. The major topics that have led to such bans have been LGTBQ issues and “critical race theory,” a theory that says that difficult conditions racial minorities face, such as lower job opportunities or poverty, can in part be traced back to discriminatory conditions in the past. However, of late, there have been claims of censorship of a different sort, where old books have either been discontinued or some of the author's words have been changed to better meet current standards.

The most notable example of this today has to do with some of Roald Dahl's books. Similar claims were made a couple of years ago regarding six of Dr. Seuss' books. Dahl had used terms for people we could see as insensitive today. He used descriptive terms such as “ugly,” “fat” and “crazy.” That doesn't sound all that controversial to me, but then again, an essay by a handicapped person made me think a bit more deeply. In older books, handicapped people were often depicted in a negative light. Heroes were healthy virile men and beautiful women, villains the opposite. The essay was an appeal to have handicapped people depicted the same as others. It makes you stop and think how they must feel about negative portrayals.

What this led to was a decision by The Roald Dahl Story Company, owner of the rights to Dahl's works, and publisher Puffin Books, to update some of these words in Dahl's stories. This was done in cooperation with a group called Inclusive Minds, who specialize in making children's books inclusive and more accessible to all children. Along with updated words they have made a number of words gender neutral, such as “not ladylike” changed to “undignified.” Puffin will now make Dahl's books available in this new more sensitive edition along with the original version. People can choose. This is reminiscent of an earlier move by Dr. Seuss Enterprises to stop publishing six of Seuss' titles with depictions of minorities that were not thought of as being offensive many decades ago by those not part of the minority, but recognized differently today. Why they chose not to make minor changes instead I do not know. I never found Dahl's work particularly interesting, so I can't judge whether changes are appropriate, but I loved Seuss (and still do).

These changes raise some important questions with no obvious answers. Is it fair and appropriate to change an author's words without their permission? If they are older books, chances are the author is dead so we don't know how they would feel. Knowing Dahl's personality, I think he would have been peeved. Sensitivity was not his strong suit and he had no problem being offensive, even by the standards of his times. Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, was a different type of person, one who I imagine would have made such changes himself to eliminate stereotypes that he did not realize were insensitive at the time but would have today. It would be like George Washington, who owned slaves in his day, but I am quite certain if he were alive today he would not be advocating the reintroduction of slavery. Do the likely feelings of Dahl and Geisel matter today? Yes they do, but to what extent I don't know.

Some find changing books a literary wrong. That is certainly a compelling argument. I don't like the concept at all, though I think context makes a big difference. If a recent book referred to Barack Obama or Colin Powell with the n-word that would be totally disgusting and I cannot imagine a reputable publisher allowing that to stand. But what about Mark Twain's character Ni**er Jim? That is really essential to the time and place of the story. Calling him African American Jim would be untrue to its time, not just a simple word substitution. Even children need to get an accurate reading of history, the bad with the good. Ironically, the republishing of old books that display prejudices minorities experienced might well have the effect of teaching critical race theory to children who are sympathetic to the underdog.

It needs to be remembered that changing words is not something new, the outcome strictly of recent critical race theory or “wokeism.” In 1939, famed mystery writer Agatha Christie published a book titled, Ten Little Ni**ers. However, when Dodd Mead published the American edition in 1940, they changed the title to And Then There Were None. Were they being “woke” when they concluded the title was too offensive, even in 1940 when segregation was still permissible in schools and public places, while degrading black minstrel shows were thought to be funny? Should the original title be restored? I think not. Anyone who thinks so, please raise your hand.

Regardless of how you feel about updating words in older books, there is one more thing it is important to know. This has nothing to do with censorship, though certain people try to frame it this way. No government authority has banned Dahl's or Seuss' books in any library. Nor have I seen any angry confrontations or threats hurled at library boards and staff over their books. These decisions have been made by those who own the rights to these books. They have chosen to offer alternate versions or take some off the market and that is an owner's right. They were not forced to do it by politicians or anyone else.

There is also one other major difference between this and serious censorship. No one is trying to change the ideas Dahl and Seuss were promoting, whatever they might be. They have attempted to reduce offensiveness by substituting less offensive synonyms, which may or may not be a literary style travesty but does not interfere with the author's expression of their ideas. Their ideas have not been silenced. What has gone on in places like Florida is not the substitution of the word “gay” for “homosexual,” it is preventing children from hearing the message that people who are not heterosexual should not be mocked, threatened, humiliated, and degraded because of circumstances beyond their control. It is the banning of ideas, not a few words (as has regularly been done with swear words), that is the essence of censorship.

Rare Book Monthly

Roald Dahl and Censorship

Rare Book Monthly

Archived Articles

Roald Dahl and Censorship

Rare Book Monthly

Article Search

Archived Articles