With the thought that someone can be hurt by reading a book, people will try to challenge and ban them. To ban a book is to have it restricted from a certain age or audience. Banning and challenging books is trying to keep a certain book away from an audience due to sexual content, going against religious beliefs, language and vulgarity, violence, drugs, self-harm, racism, occult/satanic views, promoting gangs, and going against community standards. An argument from someone who believes books should not be banned is that it is important for the age group to learn about certain content and material as they grow up. Due to controversial content, the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald should be banned. Many books are challenged and …show more content…
Banning and challenging books started to become recognized almost as a problem in 1982, when the largest number of books at the time had been challenged as not suitable or appropriate for an age group. Ever since then books are criticized for sexual content, going against religious beliefs, language and vulgarity, violence, drugs, self-harm, racism, occult/satanic views, promoting gangs, and going against community standards. An example of a book that has been banned is The Catcher in The Rye by J. D. Salinger, since it has been banned from multiple libraries and schools for sexual and vulgar content (Santipr). Many people whose books have been challenged or banned have argued that the first amendment says something different. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free …show more content…
An example of this content is in the book “I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she got done. I enjoyed looking at her” (Fitzgerald 13-14). This is a clear example of why the novel should be banned. As Nick Carraway is meeting Tom and Daisy Buchanan, their friend Jordan Baker is at the house. Nick then goes on to talk to her and describe her in an inappropriate manner. “She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face” (Fitzgerald 1.13-14). These comments are clearly unsuitable for anyone in elementary, and could even be argued that they are inappropriate for middle/high school. These adult references can wrongly influence someone who reads the novel that based on the kind of person Nick is, that it is okay to do what he does. The comment could also not be understood by the reader, which could be in a classroom/library. One more reason the novel should be banned is because it promotes alcoholism and illegal business. "I found out what your 'drug stores' were.’ He turned to us and spoke rapidly. ‘He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol
Did you ever think that books that have sex, obscene language, and immoral subjects can make a good book? The Catcher in the Rye has been on the banned reading list for exactly those reasons. The book was mainly put on disapproval from between 1966 and 1975 in almost every school district in the United States. The book was said to be so bad that in 1960 a teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was fired for assigning the book to an eleventh-grade English class. Despite some opposition to the novel, however, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye should be on a reading list for the freshman students because it gives a crystal clear image on how the world is in violence, sex, and obscenity and the book also teaches the motifs of lying and deception.
The banning of books started way back, back in 1637 to be exact (America’s First Banned Book and the Battle for the Soul of the Country). The banning of New English Canaan by Thomas Morton ignited a spark, but as years gone by, the spark has evolved into a roaring flame(America’s First Banned Book and the Battle for the Soul of the Country). In 1951, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was published ("Catcher in the Rye is published"). Ever since its publication, it has been the target to many people for this simple question: should the book be banned? As a matter of fact, in a mere 10 to 20 years, the book was added to the banned book list(Banned Book: The Catcher in the Rye). This angered many readers in the United States, and some tried
Books are banned for many reasons but more times than not it is because of the sensitive information found within the novel that agitates the reader. As long as people have been able to develop their own opinions, others have sought to prevent them from sharing. At some point in time, every idea has ultimately become objectionable to someone. The most frequently challenged and most visible targets of such objection are the very books found in classrooms and public libraries. These controversial novels teach lessons that sometimes can be very sensitive to some but there is much more to challenged books than a controversial topic. What lies within these pages is a wealth of knowledge, such as new perspectives for readers, twisting plots, and expressions that are found nowhere else. For example, To Kill A Mockingbird, contains references to rape, racial content, and profanity that have caused many to challenge the novel in the first place. The book was banned from countless
Although some think that the banning of books isn’t as common now as it was in the past, that is true, however J.D. Salinger’s book has had disputes over the censorship as recent a 2010 and has been disputed/banned in states as South Carolina, Minnesota, Montana, and Maine from 2001-2010. . “Wolf, Baldassarro R. "World.eduNewsBlogsCoursesJobsPartners." Worldedu Banned Books Awareness The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger Comments. World.edu, 11 Jan. 2011. Web. 8 Nov. 2013.” The controversy that surrounds the book focuses on a young boy by the name of Holden...
"Book Banning." Current Issues: Macmillian Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.
Although being described as a great american classic, The Great Gatsby has been challenged and even banned from public schools! If you don’t already know what a banned or challenged book is, it is when a person or group of people don’t believe a book or books aren’t appropriate for young readers. Books that are believed to be unsuitable are challenged by these people and sometimes are taken out of the library. The most common reason for challenging or banning of books is because it has material that is offensive to religious readers, such as sexual references and drug usages. F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was challenged because of sexual references and alcohol, which is completely unjust and an infringement on our First Amendment rights.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, 1884. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951. Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell, 1936. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925 (www.bannedbooksweek.org). All of the books mentioned in the last sentences were books that “shaped America,” and were in some way or another banned or expurgated by taking all of the explicit words, and content, out of them. In doing so, the people who made the decisions to ban the books, or otherwise take out the content, greatly decreased the viewpoints that the author was trying to conceive. I believe that, unless the reading is for children under the age of, say, 13, then books like the aforementioned ones above, should not be banned or censored at all. Sometimes you have a rare case, like mine, where kids skip a few grades, and are really ahead of their class, and still a little immature, but if they are in a certain grade, they should be allowed to read, and understand what the author was originally trying to portray before the “people who think they know best” go and censor the author’s initial intent.
Banning Books “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” (Blume 1999). Judy Blume can not explain the problem of book censorship any clearer.
Every year in the United States we have books being banned and challenged by many people who do not like the contents of books. When researching for this argument essay I found an article written by Rebecca Hagelin. Rebecca Hagelin is the author of Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in a Culture That’s Gone Stark Raving Mad and the vice president of communications and marketing at the Heritage Foundation (Lankford).
Baldassarro, R. Wolf. Banned Books Awareness: “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger. 23 1 2011. 10 11 2013 .
Banned books are books to which free access is not allowed. The practice of banning books is a method of book censorship, and often has political, religious or moral motivations. Catching fire the second book in the hunger games trilogy. The book is banned and I believe that is shouldn’t be banned. The reasons are it has excessive violence, causes nightmares in children, and some believe is anti-ethnic. I think Catching fire shouldn’t be banned because the book teaches a lesson to never give up. But high school students should be able to read the book because it’s very influential on young readers and gives readers that feeling that giving up is not an option and to keep pushing on.
Imagine a world where lying, murdering, partying, and cheating on your spouse is allowed and encouraged. Would you want to live in that kind of a world? ¨The Great Gatsby¨ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which I believe should be banned, is a story in which all of the above goes without consequence. In a fictional town of West Egg illegal activities happen all the time, and the wrongdoers have even taught themselves to justify those activities.
Does The Great Gatsby merit the praise that it has received for many decades? “Why I despise The Great Gatsby” is an essay by Kathryn Schulz at New York Magazine in which Schulz states that she has read it five times without obtaining any pleasure from it. Long viewed as Fitzgerald’s masterpiece and placed at or near the uppermost section of the English literary list, The Great Gatsby has been used as a teaching source in high schools and universities across the United States. The novel is narrated by Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who moved to Long Island, next door to an elegant mansion owned by a mysterious and affluent Jay Gatsby. The story follows Gatsby and Nick’s unusual friendship and Gatsby’s pursuit of a married woman named Daisy.
There is a difference between banned books and challenged books. According to the American Library Association (ALA), “A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group (About banned, para. 2). A banned book is when a book or other reading material is removed from certain locations and not available. For example, one of the most challenged books in the 21st century is The Giver by Lois Lowry (100 Most). The novel, The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sheman Alexie was banned in high school in Oregon because a parent complained that the book was offensive (Doyle, 3).
The most debatable and controversial form of censorship today is the banning of books in school libraries. Banning books that educate students is wrong and selfish. Censorship of books in school libraries is neither uncommon nor an issue of the past. Books with artistic and cultural worth are still challenged constantly by those who want to control what others read. The roots of bigotry and illiteracy that fuel efforts to censor books and free expression are unacceptable and unconditional. Censoring school books in libraries can often lead to censorship of our basic freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. In some cases, a minority ends up dictating the majority in censorship cases. To be told what is permissible reading material and what is not is a direct violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.