Profanity in Novels

[Jozanny]

Thanks, Jozanny.

You're welcome, since the last time I looked, none of us live off of ether.

[blp]

You're welcome, since the last time I looked, none of us live off of ether.

Try as I may.

[Dogbrick]

The plot of Ian McEwan's brilliant novel Atonement hinges upon the use of the c-word. I am currently teaching this novel in my Year 12 Literature class and have been impressed with how adult they are being about the use of the word (for those not familiar, Australian Year 12's are aged between 17-18). As a class we have discussed the use of profanity in novels and the consensus is that the profanity, if used within context, enhances the novel and gives it the reality that the author obviously intended.

Another wonderful novel we study is The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time, also full of realistic and natural profanity.

[kelby_lake]

I would have to disagree here. After all, when one hears foul-mouthed individuals spouting off in public it is usually because they find it easier express themselves in crude vernacular rather than use a more articulate mode of speech.

We can't be articulate all the time. Truth is that when people get frustrated, sometimes the 'crude vernacular' is all they can articulate.

It's more of a problem in films I think.

[PeterL]

I believe the N word is appropriate for Of Mice and Men and other works such as Adventures of Huckleberry finn. The time and place of these novels, to make them accurate, requires the use of these words. Whites of that time period seldom used the term "black" as pertains to a black person.

That's not to say it wasn't racist, but to them it was probably the same as when we call someone black specifically to make a descrimination. It was a different time and place and, as mentioned, words and their connotated meanings have changed over time.

Actually, the N word wasn't defined as a racist term until the 1970's. Before that it was just another colloquial term for Black people. It generally showed that people were low class when they used the word, but it didn't suggest that they had any ill-feelings toward Black people. Polite people would have used the term Negro or a regional variant like Nigra, but in other periods the euphemisms Colored or Dark might have ben used.

[Brad Coelho]

Roth's not shy about using the f-bomb; at least it sneaks its way into American Pastoral on multiple pages.

[myrna22]

Actually, the N word wasn't defined as a racist term until the 1970's. Before that it was just another colloquial term for Black people. It generally showed that people were low class when they used the word, but it didn't suggest that they had any ill-feelings toward Black people. Polite people would have used the term Negro or a regional variant like Nigra, but in other periods the euphemisms Colored or Dark might have ben used.

Wow, not true at all. The n-word was indeed a derogatory term for black people, as long as I can remember, which is from the 50's on. "It generally showed that people were low class when they used the word, but it didn't suggest that they had any ill-feelings toward Black people." Totally wrong. I knew people who used it and it was definitely a derogatory term, not just ignorance.

[Emil Miller]

Wow, not true at all. The n-word was indeed a derogatory term for black people, as long as I can remember, which is from the 50's on. "It generally showed that people were low class when they used the word, but it didn't suggest that they had any ill-feelings toward Black people." Totally wrong. I knew people who used it and it was definitely a derogatory term, not just ignorance.

I don't think it was always used in a derogatory way. A friend's parents had a cat called Nigger and at about the same time, a certain shade of brown in clothing was referred to as nigger brown with no racial reference intended.

[PeterL]

Wow, not true at all. The n-word was indeed a derogatory term for black people, as long as I can remember, which is from the 50's on. "It generally showed that people were low class when they used the word, but it didn't suggest that they had any ill-feelings toward Black people." Totally wrong. I knew people who used it and it was definitely a derogatory term, not just ignorance.

Wow! I am not wrong. It is more likely that you were acquainted with more racists than I was. That word by itself did not indicate racist feelings.

Perhaps this is a parallel world situation where you are from a different world in which use of the n word showed racism, but that's not how it was here in the U.S.A. here on Earth.

[blp]

I know we shouldn't take wikipedia as conclusive proof of anything, but this page does say that Twain, in 1883, only used the word in inverted commas, in reported speech, and, himself, only used 'negro'. It also says that as early as 1904, 'Clifton Johnson documented the "opprobrious" character of the word, emphasizing that it was chosen in the South precisely because it was more offensive than "colored."'

[PeterL]

I know we shouldn't take wikipedia as proof of anything, but this page does say that Twain, in 1883, only used the word in inverted commas, in reported speech, and, himself, only used 'negro'. It also says that as early as 1904, 'Clifton Johnson documented the "opprobrious" character of the word, emphasizing that it was chosen in the South precisely because it was more offensive than "colored."'

This is a discussion that can't possibly go anywhere, because it is completely subjective; but my reality is better than yours

[myrna22]

I don't think it was always used in a derogatory way. A friend's parents had a cat called Nigger and at about the same time, a certain shade of brown in clothing was referred to as nigger brown with no racial reference intended.

uh....maybe in England?

Very different in the States.

Wow! I am not wrong. It is more likely that you were acquainted with more racists than I was. That word by itself did not indicate racist feelings.

Perhaps this is a parallel world situation where you are from a different world in which use of the n word showed racism, but that's not how it was here in the U.S.A. here on Earth.

I think you are very wrong. Perhaps you were unaware that the people around you using this word were being racist and vile. Because they were. I was not surrounded by people who used the n-word, far from it. Which is perhaps why I realize it was indeed a very bad word to use, very derogatory. If you lived in an environment, prior to the 70's, in which people regularly used the n-word, then you lived in a very racist environment indeed. Where I l lived, we didn't use it and knew it was a very ugly insult.

And I did grow up in the US.

I know we shouldn't take wikipedia as conclusive proof of anything, but this page does say that Twain, in 1883, only used the word in inverted commas, in reported speech, and, himself, only used 'negro'. It also says that as early as 1904, 'Clifton Johnson documented the "opprobrious" character of the word, emphasizing that it was chosen in the South precisely because it was more offensive than "colored."'

You are absolutely right. When Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn, he was writing about a world set in the past and a world where the n-word was used. In his own contemporary world, negro or colored would have been the appropriate term, he would not use the n-word himself as it was rude and insulting, at the very least.

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE=blp;866774]You wish it was. Some of us really don't find it unacceptable. Many of us. Ergo it is not a universal concept.

Which is why I said "not generally acceptable" in order to allow for those who disagree. I do think that the common decency to realise that most people find it offensive is a universal concept. If it were not so, there would be no reason for most website owners, such as this one, to blank out profanity.
There is actually a political website that has a special section for those who are unable to comment without resorting to swearing. Interestingly enough, there is only one contributor who swears, all other comments come from members who still do not find it necessary and are mostly there to wind up the swearer.

This strikes me as an incredibly poor analogy because most movie sex is so ridiculously implausible. Rather than return to the ambiguous fadeouts as a strict rule (though I do agree they can be very effective) it would be nice occasionally to see sex portrayed believably, e.g. not necessarily earth-shattering, requiring some foreplay etc. This kind of thing, like good dialogue, including dialogue that uses swearing, can be a useful plank of a strong characterisation, as well as being just another aspect of human experience with which the reader/film viewer can empathise.

A better analogy with your attitude would seem to me to be the absurd way married couples used to be shown in separate beds in Hollywood movies. We all knew most couples shared beds in real life, but it wasn't considered nice to admit it.

Of course we knew it, but I very much doubt that anyone left the cinema bemoaning the fact that the Hays office had ordained separate beds to be obligatory.

But you wouldn't use the swearwords even though you do yourself in real life and so do many of your readers? Wow, Brian, it's not like you're being asked to expose your rear-end in public. Why should we all be swearing in private and referring to it so squeamishly in print?

Although there are instances when I use swear words, I don't use them in conversation with other people. As I have said, common decency requires a certain amount of consideration for other people's sensitivities. That doesn't mean walking on eggshells, as the PC brigade would have everyone do, and there is always room for a joke, but I see no reason to deliberately upset others who may be averse to bad language either in speech or in print.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Neely, literature and art are created out of the gutter all the time, whether or not graphic language is employed. Dickens himself highlighted the poor and disabled in the hope of making things better for them. Zola created great novels out of slovenly miners and prostitutes. Midnight Cowboy upgrades Steinbeck in the guise of a vulnerable hustler who may have homosexual proclivities. Shakespeare himself couldn't get enough of cross dressing. Trollope made a protagonist out of an Anglo-Irish domestic abuser. The list goes on. I read a novel by a profiled writer in P&W about a prostitute on public assistance who gets gang raped while she's dead drunk, and it was a moving narrative. The author worked at a gas station while completing it. You might want to look at what your own authors have been up to of late, as well.

Just to be clear. I think that the writer or artist should be free to do or express whatever they want, which would include swearing or much worse or whatever was deemed necessary by the artist. However, I’m not interested in the vulgarity for the sake of vulgarity in the mode of cheap shock value. Great artists can make great art out of nearly anything true, but to delight in what is vulgar for the sake of it, as TV soap operas do, is totally demeaning. Literature and art can be made out of the gutter but it is how they are made out of the gutter that counts.

[stlukesguild]

John Wilmot, not Henry

Right you are... I just cut and pasted his name from Wikipedia... but unfortunately I got the wrong Wilmot: Henry, the First Earl of Rochester rather than John the Second Earl of Rochester... the poet.