I think I was thirteen or fourteen when I first read Of Mice and Men. That was the 1960s. It was about the same time I read To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies and Lord of the Rings. And three of those books have been banned in various places, most commonly because they contain the N-word. It appears once in Lord of the Flies, 16 times in Of Mice and Men and 48 times in To Kill a Mockingbird.
I read all of these more than once as a teenager and I am uncertain of how aware I was of the use of this word. I knew it was an insult. I knew it was a racist insult. But I do not think I knew how bad it really was, especially to those to whom it was directed. I knew how bad Fatty felt when applied to overweight me and I registered Piggy in Lord of the Flies. But I did not know how the N-word might feel.
And the N-word is not all
Too often overlooked in the arguments about whether or not these books should be banned is that their problems are not limited to racial slurs. Both To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men are highly ableist in their treatment of central characters – Boo Radley and Lenny respectively.
Of Mice and Men also demonstrates deep misogyny in its treatment of Curley’s wife. In the book, she is simply Curley’s wife, implying that she is property rather than a person with her own name. Some film adaptations reduce the use of the racial slur and some name Curley’s wife as Mae.
Of Mice and Men is special
It is special to me because I did more than read it. By the mid-1970s, I had become a teacher of English and drama. The form with whom I had chosen to study Of Mice and Men were all capable of reading it for themselves. But having read a short story to them one day, they had asked that I read the book we were about to study.
I think that helped their interest, engagement and appreciation of it. And keeping children interested was the first art of teaching. The discussions that ensued were fabulous and concentrated on the story and how the characters treated each other rather than their use of language.
Speaking the N-word
Over a period of a few weeks, I read Of Mice and Men with this group of girls and boys. There were relatively few children of colour in the school and my memory says there were none in this class. If there had been, and it is possible there were, I do not think it would have changed the fact that I read the word aloud and it was used in discussion by me and some of the class. Some of its uses were self-references by Crooks, the only black character, and probably got little discussion, if any.
And it was not just in the classroom. In the 1990s, I aged up for an amateur production of the stage version, where I played Curley’s dad, the boss of the farm where the story takes place. I cannot remember whether I said it directly, but it was used in the production.
We change how we use words
And I can hardly imagine speaking it now. Perhaps the only context would be if I had heard it and was required to repeat it in a court of law.
This word derives from the French nègre and the Spanish negro, both coming from the same Latin base and meaning black. A court in Biarritz has just decided to ban the term ‘La Negresse’ for both a district and a street. It means black woman, and is possibly associated with the slave trade. The exact origin of the name is not certain but the court said it may be perceived “as being offensive to people of African origin”.
And nègre and negro were used to describe black slaves starting in the 1600s. By the early 1800s, the N-word was firmly established as a racial slur, both for ‘good’ compliant and obedient slaves and for ‘bad’ slaves who were violent or dangerous. And France, where I live, took until 2001 to recognise the slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity.
This word has become an insult in the English language, certainly when spoken by a white person about a person of colour, whatever shade their skin might be. Like the word ‘queer’ that has been taken by the gay community for their own use, this word has been reclaimed by some members of the black community.
So, should we ban these books?
There is an argument for this, with which I disagree. Recognising that these books are historic – Of Mice and Men was written 90 years ago – there is a better argument for replacing them with books by contemporary authors of multiple origins. The Welsh exam board has just removed Of Mice and Men from its English Literature curriculum. Nels Abbey argues for replacing Of Mice and Men with The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
There have been moves in many places, including parts of South Africa, Zimbabwe and India to ban Shakespeare because of the racism and anti-semitism in plays like Othello and The Merchant of Venice. Undergraduates at Yale petitioned in 2016 to stop the monopoly of “white male poets”, including Shakespeare. However, other prominent people of colour, including Nelson Mandela, have found great value in Shakespeare.
Can the work of Shakespeare and Steinbeck be replaced?
I do not know if there are sufficient writers to replace the books I first read as a teenager. My thanks to Charlotte Mbali, editor-in-chief of Kent and Surrey Bylines, for suggesting writers such as Chinua Achebe and Ngugi, whose fiction depicts the colonialism of British history.
My intuitive response is still that, even with some alternatives, not letting people read Steinbeck or Harper Lee would be detrimental to our understanding of the human condition. And how much is it that my prejudices built on my reading these when young and not reading alternatives more recently published? Total replacement or banning would take away some wonderful and powerful stories. To me, Shakespeare will always be unique and, to date, the greatest poet in the English language and thus irreplaceable.
So what do we do with these books?
If we look at these not purely through the lens of race but as works of art, then I think the perspective can change. Art stimulates and creates controversy, be that Michelangelo’s Last Judgement and statue of David, the Venus of Willendorf, or the music of Richard Wagner appropriated as it was by the Nazis to extol German nationalism.
And that art is no less great because of those controversies and associations. The question that should be asked is not ‘Is there something we dislike about this writer or this work?’ but ‘What can we learn from this?’
Tomiwa Owolade argues against decolonising the curriculum because it interlinks literature with social justice and politics and ignores the great continuity many writers of colour, such as Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith and Derek Walcott, hold with Faulker, Dickens and Homer. I agree with him, and that means there needs to be some degree of caveat and control.
We have classified films as only suitable for certain age groups since 1912, 20 years before Of Mice and Men was published. Trigger warnings are much more recent and derided by some. They most commonly contain a phrase along the lines of ‘some people may find this offensive,’ and why not?
A simple warning
I do not need to be warned that Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s most violent play, contains scenes of sexual violence and sexual assault because I know it. Arguably, Cambridge University students of English Literature should know enough about the play to not need a trigger warning about a forthcoming lecture on it. Admittedly, if they have been a victim of similar violence, coming upon a discussion about them unexpectedly may be deeply unpleasant and even re-traumatising. Preventing that with a simple warning sounds worthwhile to me, and costs a great deal less than the ‘Don’t Walk’ signs on every Pelican crossing.
With care, I see no reason not to continue to teach Of Mice and Men in our schools. No one would teach Shakespeare without the background of the time it was written. Without some understanding of Victorian society, the works of Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde lose much of their meaning. I think Steinbeck’s books need to join them in being taught with appropriate warnings and clarity of their time and context.
