My English 101 Research Paper
I thought some people might like to read my English 101 final research paper, so here it is: (I'm bored and just want to post something)
Censorship and American Schoolchildren
Carl LaFrance
December 14, 2004
Professor Davis
English 101, CCBC Catonsville
Abstract
Censorship takes many forms in modern American society. Often the value of books or literature is questioned due to graphic or “vulgar” language, scenes of violence or sex, or the situations of and choices made by characters. Most books are censored for moral reasons, among these that exposure to the ideas contained therein will warp or damage a Childs’ conception of the world and send them into sin and vice or present them with situations they are not mature or experienced enough to understand. While very young children are indeed not ready to understand the horror of death in Slaughterhouse-Five or analyze the euthanasia in Of Mice and Men much of the censorship that occurs is targeted at older children, those of the middle and high school level, as those young adults are being nurtured into adulthood and all its encumbrance by their schools and parents. Literature is a powerful tool for creating experiences and understanding. In books we are transported, if you will, to the places, times and even thoughts of people undergoing the full range of human experience and ordeal. Few other mediums can so easily instruct, explain and describe so personally, as the reader applies their own knowledge to the story at hand. Even pieces as controversial as The Grapes of Wrath and The Catcher in the Rye to which the primary objections are their extensive use of local patois, specifically vulgar language, speak of real situations, real thoughts and are very true examples of the life and practices of many of the people in their settings. In my exposition I will explore some of the primary objections to pieces of literature and illustrate some of the forms in which censorship exists, furthermore I will examine the individual positive aspects of several very famous and commonly censored books and explore their advantage to society and the individual reader.
For your own good…
For the purpose of my dissertation censorship will be defined as the banning, blacklisting, seizing, burning or editing of literature to lessen it’s exposure to school-age children. Censorship is defined by The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition as “The act, process, or practice of… (reviewing literature)…to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.”(1) The censorship argument may be considered to be most prevalent in our public schools, a situation in which adults are charged with the education of children academically, socially and morally. Here they encounter a difficulty, as according to Rhoda Rabkin of the American Enterprise Institute: “Most American parents want to restrict children's access to…violence, sex, drug use, or vulgar language.”(2) What then of literature which due to its violent, vulgar, sexual or painful nature would fall under the purview that our “Most American parents” would wish to protect their children from. At what point does the educational and experiential quality of a piece of literature become counter balanced by the “vulgar” or “sexual” danger it poses to schoolchildren? I propose that it never does. All contemplative literature, even that which shocks or sickens, as Kurt Vonnegut’s’ Slaughterhouse-Five, presents to the reader a reality, even if it is only the reality in the authors mind. To understand life and to be an educated and balanced person one must be exposed to the realities of war, hate, death, pain and loss, there are few better mediums there for than reading literature written expressly to impose those ideas upon the reader.
In Opposing Censorship in the Public Schools: Religion, Morality, and Literature Ms. June Edwards tells us: “A frequent claim of …(religious)… leaders is that the Founding Fathers used the Bible as the basis for our Republic, established America to be a Christian nation, and never intended for Christianity (defined as born-again fundamentalism) to be separated from government.” Ms. Edwards has struck at the very base of the problem. Religious morality is the primary moral ethos for most Americans today, even secular Humanists are driven by their assertion that “the only bases for morality are human experience and human needs” (4) In any sort of religious or “fundamental” standpoint, there are things which cannot be countenanced and in the current Judeo-Christian moral system exposing a child to “vulgarity”, be it sexual, verbal, etc., is a terrible crime and not to be tolerated. As illustrated in Ms. Edwards’ quote, many Christians believe that their religion preempts government and therefore schools and teachers individual choices on literature appropriateness for classroom use. One can only expect that if given free reign, these individuals would with no hesitation remove any even moderately “vulgar” literature from school shelves, regardless of the documents’ value for expanding the experiences and horizons of children.
In November of 1999 “…a teacher at the Windsor Forest High School required seniors to obtain permission slips before they could read Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear”(5) The teacher's school board had pulled the books from class reading lists, citing "adult language" and references to sex and violence. One cannot debate the violence in these pieces, but the works of William Shakespeare are considered to be some of the most excellent literary works in English literature. This is a very good example of the impact that censorship can have on the education and growth of our young people. I will be discussing several works which are commonly targeted for banning or editing in American school systems and discuss the reasons why they are targeted for such and speak in opposition there to. These works will be Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five, first published in 1966 during the Vietnam War has been targeted for banning or burning ever since. In 1973, for instance, three dozen paperback copies of the novel were burned by the school superintendent and board members in Drake, North Dakota, after a high school sophomore complained about the profanity. Two years earlier a circuit court judge in Michigan told an area high school to ban the book or he would order it done himself because it was a "degradation of the person of Christ" and full of "repetitious obscenity and immorality" (6) Slaughterhouse-Five is a true story of the experiences of the author leading up to, during and after the British and American firebombing of Dresden, which had been the jewel of Eastern Germany until it was destroyed. The characters are American military POW’s being held by the German army. In the book extreme detail is used to describe the death and pain endured by the POW’s and the horrible deaths of over 200,000 innocent civilians(7) living in what was at the time considered to be the safest city in Germany. These thousands died horribly, most died from burns, hot gases, carbon monoxide, and smoke poisoning. The temperature reached over 1,000° F in the firestorm, completely incinerating bricks and tiles as well as people. It is truly one of the most terrible events that has occurred in modern warfare and the reader is encouraged to it as a cautionary tale. Someone who has never heard of such an event would not perhaps be able to imagine it without reading such a novel. Children, who will soon grow into adulthood, can thrive from a proper warning about the horrors of war. Vonnegut speaks to his point in the preface of his book on page 19: "… (My book)…is so short and jumbled and jangled...because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead....Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like 'Poo-tee-weet?'"
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
This story about hope and love in the midst of misery still has the power to move first-time readers to tears; it also moves would-be censors to complain about profanity, prejudice, irreligion and euthanasia. In 1992, parents in Hamilton, Ohio, objected to the book because of its supposed anti-Christian content, vulgarity, profanity, and racial slurs. A minister pronounced, "Anybody that's got a child shouldn't want them to read this book. It should be burned up, put in a fire…It's not fit for a heathen to read"(8) Steinbeck’s’ story of two vagrant workers in 1940’s Mississippi tells of the friendship between a mentally retarded man and a man who has become close to him in their travels. These men take work at a remote farm and we are exposed to examples of their world, from dirt floored huts to the flirtatious advances of the farmers’ daughter. The mentally retarded character has no understanding of his massive physical strength and when the farmers’ daughter encourages him to touch her soft hair, he accidentally kills her by breaking her neck. He runs away, realizing what he has done and is pursued by the farm workers, including his friend. His friend finds him first, but knows that the others are soon to come. So he asks his large friend to think of his one happy dream and then shoots him in his head to save him from torture and painful death at the hands of the powerful and unforgiving farmers’ men. Steinbeck asks each of us to examine ourselves in the case of each of these characters. Are we the flirtatious daughter, bringing death to ourselves and pain and hate to others for our own edification? Are we the retarded character, clumsy, sad, wishing only to be helpful and to not be hurt? Are we the friend, could we really kill a friend quickly to keep them from suffering worse pain at the hands of others? These are questions which change a person’s perspective and would indeed enrich and challenge any who read this piece.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Since its publication in 1960, Harper Lee's novel about racial bigotry in the Deep South has been one of the most frequently selected books for required reading in high school classrooms. According to the Library of Congress' "Survey of Lifetime Reading Habits" (1991), To Kill a Mockingbird was second only to the Bible in being "most often cited as making a difference" in people's lives. (9) The book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961, was translated into 10 languages and was made into a classic film starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. For 30 years, however, it has been on the list of the 30 most challenged books, usually in the top 10. In 1981 in Warren, Indiana, the book was challenged because it "does psychological damage to the positive integration process" and "represents institutionalized racism under the guise of 'good literature" In other states the book has been challenged because of profanity, racial slurs, and the word “nigger.” (10) Ms. Lees novel is a fictional piece in which the narrator tells us of an experience from her childhood. A black man, Tom, is wrongfully accused of violently raping a poor white woman in her home. The piece is set in Macomb County, Alabama in the midst of the 1930’s depression and illustrates the bigotry and injustice of life for blacks throughout the era. Ms. Lee indeed grew up in this era and her language and tone reflect daily life for her and the others of the small agricultural communities of the time. The title is a reference to a caution that our narrator, Scout, receives from her father, Atticus. He explains that his father told him never to kill a mockingbird because they do nothing but kill the insects in the garden and sing beautifully. This is of course a parallel to Tom, who did not harm the white woman and in fact was a good man and trying to help her in her poverty and hopelessness. This piece speaks to the injustice of the world and the terrible bigotry and crimes that were visited upon African-Americans throughout American history. When reading this piece one is driven to cheer for the wholesome, thoughtful, hard-working characters, many of whom are black, and to revile and vilify the disconsolate and hateful people who wish to destroy them. In no manner is the ambiance of hate and mistrust condoned by the piece, in fact as a whole it is an unequivocal rejection thereof.
What about the children?
Each of these pieces of literature is an example of the forces that exist in our society, both in their content and characteristics and in their controversial status. All people must make their own decisions and this personal freedom is one of the most important to our democratic way of life and to our cohesion as a society. It is imperative then that children are escorted into adulthood with every tool at hand and as effectively as possible. The lessons which may be learned from reading and exploring novels, history, culture, art, science and all the other subjects with which our schools attempt to acquaint our children are ones which are necessary to our effective function as a society. It is a terrible loss to the effective development of our children if they are not prepared for the hard and hurtful parts of life. It is difficult to entertain the thought of subjecting our children to painful or damaging experiences. Yet each of us, as adults, knows how cold and hard the world can be. In the world of literature children and young adults can grow knowledgeable and gain insights that will help them to understand the world about them. They can learn about hate and death, about pain and misery, strife and inequality all from a safe perspective, a nurturing and comfortable setting in which they can question, examine and accept, all at their own pace. The charges which we as Americans lay upon our public schools are to educate our children both effectively and safely; ideals which sometimes clash in their missions. It is indeed difficult to develop stable, intelligent adults if children are not presented the full range of human emotion and experience. Literature is the tool of educators and students, we should never restrict it from attaining its objective, to speak to us all and share our lives.
Bibliography
1) The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company.
2) Do Kids Need Government Censors? Rhoda Rabkin - author. Journal Title: Policy Review. Publication Year: 2002. Page Number: 27+
3) Opposing Censorship in the Public Schools: Religion, Morality, and Literature, June Edwards, LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 1998 Mahwah, New Jersey London
4) In Defense of Secular Humanism. Paul Kurtz - author. Publisher: Prometheus Books. Publication Year: 1983. Page Number: 33.
5) Savannah Morning news, Transcript of broadcast, November 12, 1999
6) "The Banning of Billy Pilgrim" (1971) the Christian Century, 88, 681.
7) Irving, D. (1963). The Destruction of Dresden New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
8) Foerstel, H. N. (1994). Banned in the U.S.A.: A reference guide to book censorship in schools and public libraries. Westport, CT: Greenwood. p.146
9) Durst-Johnson, C. (1994). To kill a mockingbird: Threatening boundaries. New York: Twayne.
10) Doyle, R. P (1994). Banned books: 1994 resource guide. Chicago: American Library Association.
Wasn't that fun? If you got here, please go have yourself psychologically examined.
Censorship and American Schoolchildren
Carl LaFrance
December 14, 2004
Professor Davis
English 101, CCBC Catonsville
Abstract
Censorship takes many forms in modern American society. Often the value of books or literature is questioned due to graphic or “vulgar” language, scenes of violence or sex, or the situations of and choices made by characters. Most books are censored for moral reasons, among these that exposure to the ideas contained therein will warp or damage a Childs’ conception of the world and send them into sin and vice or present them with situations they are not mature or experienced enough to understand. While very young children are indeed not ready to understand the horror of death in Slaughterhouse-Five or analyze the euthanasia in Of Mice and Men much of the censorship that occurs is targeted at older children, those of the middle and high school level, as those young adults are being nurtured into adulthood and all its encumbrance by their schools and parents. Literature is a powerful tool for creating experiences and understanding. In books we are transported, if you will, to the places, times and even thoughts of people undergoing the full range of human experience and ordeal. Few other mediums can so easily instruct, explain and describe so personally, as the reader applies their own knowledge to the story at hand. Even pieces as controversial as The Grapes of Wrath and The Catcher in the Rye to which the primary objections are their extensive use of local patois, specifically vulgar language, speak of real situations, real thoughts and are very true examples of the life and practices of many of the people in their settings. In my exposition I will explore some of the primary objections to pieces of literature and illustrate some of the forms in which censorship exists, furthermore I will examine the individual positive aspects of several very famous and commonly censored books and explore their advantage to society and the individual reader.
For your own good…
For the purpose of my dissertation censorship will be defined as the banning, blacklisting, seizing, burning or editing of literature to lessen it’s exposure to school-age children. Censorship is defined by The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition as “The act, process, or practice of… (reviewing literature)…to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.”(1) The censorship argument may be considered to be most prevalent in our public schools, a situation in which adults are charged with the education of children academically, socially and morally. Here they encounter a difficulty, as according to Rhoda Rabkin of the American Enterprise Institute: “Most American parents want to restrict children's access to…violence, sex, drug use, or vulgar language.”(2) What then of literature which due to its violent, vulgar, sexual or painful nature would fall under the purview that our “Most American parents” would wish to protect their children from. At what point does the educational and experiential quality of a piece of literature become counter balanced by the “vulgar” or “sexual” danger it poses to schoolchildren? I propose that it never does. All contemplative literature, even that which shocks or sickens, as Kurt Vonnegut’s’ Slaughterhouse-Five, presents to the reader a reality, even if it is only the reality in the authors mind. To understand life and to be an educated and balanced person one must be exposed to the realities of war, hate, death, pain and loss, there are few better mediums there for than reading literature written expressly to impose those ideas upon the reader.
In Opposing Censorship in the Public Schools: Religion, Morality, and Literature Ms. June Edwards tells us: “A frequent claim of …(religious)… leaders is that the Founding Fathers used the Bible as the basis for our Republic, established America to be a Christian nation, and never intended for Christianity (defined as born-again fundamentalism) to be separated from government.” Ms. Edwards has struck at the very base of the problem. Religious morality is the primary moral ethos for most Americans today, even secular Humanists are driven by their assertion that “the only bases for morality are human experience and human needs” (4) In any sort of religious or “fundamental” standpoint, there are things which cannot be countenanced and in the current Judeo-Christian moral system exposing a child to “vulgarity”, be it sexual, verbal, etc., is a terrible crime and not to be tolerated. As illustrated in Ms. Edwards’ quote, many Christians believe that their religion preempts government and therefore schools and teachers individual choices on literature appropriateness for classroom use. One can only expect that if given free reign, these individuals would with no hesitation remove any even moderately “vulgar” literature from school shelves, regardless of the documents’ value for expanding the experiences and horizons of children.
In November of 1999 “…a teacher at the Windsor Forest High School required seniors to obtain permission slips before they could read Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear”(5) The teacher's school board had pulled the books from class reading lists, citing "adult language" and references to sex and violence. One cannot debate the violence in these pieces, but the works of William Shakespeare are considered to be some of the most excellent literary works in English literature. This is a very good example of the impact that censorship can have on the education and growth of our young people. I will be discussing several works which are commonly targeted for banning or editing in American school systems and discuss the reasons why they are targeted for such and speak in opposition there to. These works will be Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five, first published in 1966 during the Vietnam War has been targeted for banning or burning ever since. In 1973, for instance, three dozen paperback copies of the novel were burned by the school superintendent and board members in Drake, North Dakota, after a high school sophomore complained about the profanity. Two years earlier a circuit court judge in Michigan told an area high school to ban the book or he would order it done himself because it was a "degradation of the person of Christ" and full of "repetitious obscenity and immorality" (6) Slaughterhouse-Five is a true story of the experiences of the author leading up to, during and after the British and American firebombing of Dresden, which had been the jewel of Eastern Germany until it was destroyed. The characters are American military POW’s being held by the German army. In the book extreme detail is used to describe the death and pain endured by the POW’s and the horrible deaths of over 200,000 innocent civilians(7) living in what was at the time considered to be the safest city in Germany. These thousands died horribly, most died from burns, hot gases, carbon monoxide, and smoke poisoning. The temperature reached over 1,000° F in the firestorm, completely incinerating bricks and tiles as well as people. It is truly one of the most terrible events that has occurred in modern warfare and the reader is encouraged to it as a cautionary tale. Someone who has never heard of such an event would not perhaps be able to imagine it without reading such a novel. Children, who will soon grow into adulthood, can thrive from a proper warning about the horrors of war. Vonnegut speaks to his point in the preface of his book on page 19: "… (My book)…is so short and jumbled and jangled...because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead....Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like 'Poo-tee-weet?'"
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
This story about hope and love in the midst of misery still has the power to move first-time readers to tears; it also moves would-be censors to complain about profanity, prejudice, irreligion and euthanasia. In 1992, parents in Hamilton, Ohio, objected to the book because of its supposed anti-Christian content, vulgarity, profanity, and racial slurs. A minister pronounced, "Anybody that's got a child shouldn't want them to read this book. It should be burned up, put in a fire…It's not fit for a heathen to read"(8) Steinbeck’s’ story of two vagrant workers in 1940’s Mississippi tells of the friendship between a mentally retarded man and a man who has become close to him in their travels. These men take work at a remote farm and we are exposed to examples of their world, from dirt floored huts to the flirtatious advances of the farmers’ daughter. The mentally retarded character has no understanding of his massive physical strength and when the farmers’ daughter encourages him to touch her soft hair, he accidentally kills her by breaking her neck. He runs away, realizing what he has done and is pursued by the farm workers, including his friend. His friend finds him first, but knows that the others are soon to come. So he asks his large friend to think of his one happy dream and then shoots him in his head to save him from torture and painful death at the hands of the powerful and unforgiving farmers’ men. Steinbeck asks each of us to examine ourselves in the case of each of these characters. Are we the flirtatious daughter, bringing death to ourselves and pain and hate to others for our own edification? Are we the retarded character, clumsy, sad, wishing only to be helpful and to not be hurt? Are we the friend, could we really kill a friend quickly to keep them from suffering worse pain at the hands of others? These are questions which change a person’s perspective and would indeed enrich and challenge any who read this piece.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Since its publication in 1960, Harper Lee's novel about racial bigotry in the Deep South has been one of the most frequently selected books for required reading in high school classrooms. According to the Library of Congress' "Survey of Lifetime Reading Habits" (1991), To Kill a Mockingbird was second only to the Bible in being "most often cited as making a difference" in people's lives. (9) The book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961, was translated into 10 languages and was made into a classic film starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. For 30 years, however, it has been on the list of the 30 most challenged books, usually in the top 10. In 1981 in Warren, Indiana, the book was challenged because it "does psychological damage to the positive integration process" and "represents institutionalized racism under the guise of 'good literature" In other states the book has been challenged because of profanity, racial slurs, and the word “nigger.” (10) Ms. Lees novel is a fictional piece in which the narrator tells us of an experience from her childhood. A black man, Tom, is wrongfully accused of violently raping a poor white woman in her home. The piece is set in Macomb County, Alabama in the midst of the 1930’s depression and illustrates the bigotry and injustice of life for blacks throughout the era. Ms. Lee indeed grew up in this era and her language and tone reflect daily life for her and the others of the small agricultural communities of the time. The title is a reference to a caution that our narrator, Scout, receives from her father, Atticus. He explains that his father told him never to kill a mockingbird because they do nothing but kill the insects in the garden and sing beautifully. This is of course a parallel to Tom, who did not harm the white woman and in fact was a good man and trying to help her in her poverty and hopelessness. This piece speaks to the injustice of the world and the terrible bigotry and crimes that were visited upon African-Americans throughout American history. When reading this piece one is driven to cheer for the wholesome, thoughtful, hard-working characters, many of whom are black, and to revile and vilify the disconsolate and hateful people who wish to destroy them. In no manner is the ambiance of hate and mistrust condoned by the piece, in fact as a whole it is an unequivocal rejection thereof.
What about the children?
Each of these pieces of literature is an example of the forces that exist in our society, both in their content and characteristics and in their controversial status. All people must make their own decisions and this personal freedom is one of the most important to our democratic way of life and to our cohesion as a society. It is imperative then that children are escorted into adulthood with every tool at hand and as effectively as possible. The lessons which may be learned from reading and exploring novels, history, culture, art, science and all the other subjects with which our schools attempt to acquaint our children are ones which are necessary to our effective function as a society. It is a terrible loss to the effective development of our children if they are not prepared for the hard and hurtful parts of life. It is difficult to entertain the thought of subjecting our children to painful or damaging experiences. Yet each of us, as adults, knows how cold and hard the world can be. In the world of literature children and young adults can grow knowledgeable and gain insights that will help them to understand the world about them. They can learn about hate and death, about pain and misery, strife and inequality all from a safe perspective, a nurturing and comfortable setting in which they can question, examine and accept, all at their own pace. The charges which we as Americans lay upon our public schools are to educate our children both effectively and safely; ideals which sometimes clash in their missions. It is indeed difficult to develop stable, intelligent adults if children are not presented the full range of human emotion and experience. Literature is the tool of educators and students, we should never restrict it from attaining its objective, to speak to us all and share our lives.
Bibliography
1) The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company.
2) Do Kids Need Government Censors? Rhoda Rabkin - author. Journal Title: Policy Review. Publication Year: 2002. Page Number: 27+
3) Opposing Censorship in the Public Schools: Religion, Morality, and Literature, June Edwards, LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 1998 Mahwah, New Jersey London
4) In Defense of Secular Humanism. Paul Kurtz - author. Publisher: Prometheus Books. Publication Year: 1983. Page Number: 33.
5) Savannah Morning news, Transcript of broadcast, November 12, 1999
6) "The Banning of Billy Pilgrim" (1971) the Christian Century, 88, 681.
7) Irving, D. (1963). The Destruction of Dresden New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
8) Foerstel, H. N. (1994). Banned in the U.S.A.: A reference guide to book censorship in schools and public libraries. Westport, CT: Greenwood. p.146
9) Durst-Johnson, C. (1994). To kill a mockingbird: Threatening boundaries. New York: Twayne.
10) Doyle, R. P (1994). Banned books: 1994 resource guide. Chicago: American Library Association.
Wasn't that fun? If you got here, please go have yourself psychologically examined.