The latest editions of Roald Dahl’s books have been rewritten, with pronouns being swapped out with gender-neutral ones and the word ‘fat’ being cut from texts.

Rishi Sunak has spoken his opinion, one that has led to dispute among the public as he says these changes are negative ones and should not be encouraged, which I do agree with.

An example of such changes being made is as follows:
In previous editions of James and the Giant Peach, a line reads, “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat, and tremendously flabby at that.” Which has since been changed to, “Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute, and deserved to be squashed by the fruit.”

To censor such a thing is, in my opinion, absurd and I think these publishers should carefully reconsider their decision to meddle with such important books.

Furthermore, Dahl is, as is most obvious, dead and so unable to voice his opinion, which I think is what irritates me most. The sheer audacity to change a man’s work of fiction to fit the narrative of society baffles me.

It will do us no good to teach children to flinch from words like ‘fat’ or ‘ugly’ and while it is important to teach the younger generations manners and the proper way to treat others, this is taking it much too far.

This censorship of language is the complete opposite to the ideas of free speech, free thought and independence and if we, as a society, continue like this (shutting down those who dare disagree or have a differing opinion) then we will not grow nor mature.

So while this small change may be seen as inconsequential to some, it runs the danger of having some very large negative impacts.