Censorship The novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has recently been revised to remove the word ‘nigger’ which appears over two hundred times. The censorship of this piece of classical literature is devaluing the novel and the ideas portrayed in it. The “harmful epithets”, which also include the word ‘injun’, serve as an integral part of this novel and sanitizing this book for the goal of political correctness is also stripping a historical document of information that acknowledges America’s blatantly racist past and makes our youth aware, through education, the toxicity of prejudice. Twain’s work is dependent on his conveyance of the actual state of things and relation of ideas popular to his era. The content in the work is imperative to the messages it communicates.
People like to criticize work that tells of historical events and does not provide authentic details, so Mark Twain would have been doing this novel an injustice by not including the N word in his book. It would have
The aberrant perspective of Gilgamesh which I am presenting may seem divergent and atypical when analysed in accordance to our modern values and principles, but to Gilgamesh this would be quite natural. The values and ethics that contemporary readers hold shape their perspective of characters as they respond in various ways to the adventures that said characters undertake. A perfect example of this is when the narrator speaks of the state of Uruk and says “No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all”. From this, the contemporary audience frames Gilgamesh as an immoral tyrant, as their value of free will is being challenged. However, Gilgamesh’s intentions were in the interest of the people, as he moulded the sons into warriors to protect the city.
Finding the instances of Logos, Pathos and Ethos, as defined in Chapter 7 in Nancy Wood’s Essentials of Argument, in Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Rob Epstein’s film adaptation and docudrama of the same name proved to be a little tricky. While poetry can be an argument, Ginsberg’s freeform style and spontaneous jumping around in lyrics makes it difficult to decipher clear cut examples. I chose to use mostly the film due to the fact that there was a court case and by all means a very clear cut argument. The Government was trying to ban the print and sale of Howl due to its graphic nature. They considered it obscene.
Censorship is the idea of not revealing ideas and text in order to benefit society. But in many ways, censoring items causes the world to create biased thoughts based on the limited information released. In some cases the world is blinded because they are told nothing to begin with. Historical events such as the holocaust can prove this true. To this day society continues to be censored from ideas by the government and companies that impact our ways of life and learning.
When faced with a hard decision with no time to think, we often make irrational decisions based on certain circumstances. To take the law upon oneself is not an option available to those who have no authority. John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ readers are confronted with a situation of similarity as George’s malignant action of shooting Lennie at the end of the novel was pressured by the threat of Curley and an apparent weakness for other’s suffering. George’s actions raised debate on how his response can be justified, however, also condemned. In support of George, he saved Lennie from a potential death at the hands of Curley, however in rejecting George’s actions, it was not definite that Curley was going to kill Lennie, but by shotting him,
People should be able to decide what they want and don’t want to read. Throughout the years, books like, “The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Catcher in the Rye” have been ridiculed for the way they are written, and the solution is already there and movie ratings are a step to how books should be determined. Huck Finn is, to this day, treated with malevolence for its extensive use of the “N” word. There is certain indignation for the people trying to censor this book, but the books uses that word to show time period and emphasize character. The novel has much to
It is sometimes easier to have general categories rather trying to understand the complexities of the human life. This however goes against the ethos and ethical framework which professional counselling works within. The newspapers often stereotype for example illegal immigrants are made out to be bad people and that they should be sent home. I believe they should be seen as individual’s cases and their stories should be told as if the truth was seen and why they do what they do, it would be hard pushed to want to sent them home. Stereotyping is a very narrow minded
K. V. ENG 101 3/31/14 To Ban or Not to Ban In Dennis Baron’s, Don’t make English Official- Ban it Instead he is insisting that instead of making English the official language of the United States, we should just get rid of it altogether. In his small article he manages to whip up six small arguments to convince the readers of his ludicrous proposal. Rather than actually convincing the readers, his points are unclear, sometimes confusing and unsatisfying. In the end he doesn’t actually set up a solution for his readers, and leaves them with the whole “so what was the point,” feeling. Through his poor perspectives and unfocused essay, I am far from convinced that English should not be the official language but banned.
O'Brien creates an intentional paradox for his readers when he writes the violent, but grabbing story of Rat Kiley and then at the end of the story, tells the reader that the characters and events of the story did not happen just as he described them, but that they happened in a totally different way to other people. But he insists that the story is true. With this, O'Brien challenges the reader to discover the truth of the event. O'Brien gets the reader to figure out what fiction of this book is actually worth. Firstly, did O'Brien confuse the reader when he said that the events did not happen after the reader became involved in those events?