(no subject)
1005022
(H) English 10 - 8th
Mrs. Graham
16 May 2005
Censoring Censorship
Judy Blume once said, “It’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.” Penetrating words from an even more penetrating author, the thoughts of Judy Blume are shared by many of the members of West Marion High School’s parents. Though you, the board of education, have given ample reason for why Fahrenheit 451, a famous work by Ray Bradbury, has been banned, you have neglected to consider the negative effects of further censoring your students’ lives. The novel does contain profanities and arguably inappropriate ideas, but Bradbury’s novel has much more to offer than it has to cause disagreement. Though it may contain perverse language and deal with controversial issues such as abortion, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 also contains ground breaking and important insight into the nature and very necessity of reading and books in life, invariably proving a valuable asset to school sanctioned reading lists.
Though the novel contains profanities, the ideas conveyed by the novel address exactly that issue, showing that to fear words and ideas is self-perpetuating and that to study and understand this cycle could break it. A key component of the accusations is the use of the term “God damn” as seen on pages 114 and 163 of Bradbury’s novel. However, by looking past the initial terminology, the underlying theme is discovered as dissociating those words with any sort of hurtful meaning. The terminology is used specifically to convey the idea that fear of a word only increases fear of the thing itself. The entire book is centered on the fear of reading, or the written word. That is why the firemen in the novel can say, without guilt of destroying meaningful ideas, that the job of burning books “[is] fine work. Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn ‘em to ashes, then burn the ashes” (8). The firemen’s careless disregard for emotions scares civilians from reading, the very thing that could give them the knowledge to free themselves from this tyranny.
Many feel this novel is not age appropriate, but the issues it addresses, including freedom of speech and though, are invaluable to the molding of young minds.
Books that discuss the concepts of censorship in both literature and society, important issues that should be taught to and understood by all minds, are in short supply, and should therefore be permanently engraved on academic reading lists everywhere.
Though it may contain perverse language and deal with controversial issues such as abortion, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 also contains ground breaking and important insight into the nature and very necessity of reading and books in life, invariably proving a valuable asset to school sanctioned reading lists. Even before both Ray Bradbury and Judy Blume, the ideas of censorship were looked over with great importance. In 1821, Heinrich Heine, in his play Almansor, said, “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.” Bradubury, with his novel Fahrenheit 451, expands upon the vital idea that censorship will lead to the eventually destruction of society and man itself. To ban Bradbury’s novel would only perpetuate these ideas further, extinguishing fires that have burned in the name of books for so many years.