Banned Books and the Freedom to Read

By Elizabeth Fritsch, senior English major at Silver Lake College

I’ve seen a brave new world.  I have heard the perks of being a wallflower.  I have gone looking for Alaska, and I have partied with Jay Gatsby.  I have sat in the Maycomb courtroom balcony with Scout Finch.  I have walked the streets of New York City with Holden Caulfield and have traveled westward with the Joads.  I’ve been to Hogwarts, District 12, and have crossed the bridge to Terabithia.  I have witnessed a chocolate war.  I have spoken with the Tralfamadorians and I have twisted my tongue with Nadsat.  I have held the conch and have evaded the Thought Police.  I have read (and enjoyed) banned books.

There is no shortage of banned and challenged books.  From beloved literary classics to dystopian science fiction, it is difficult to find a book that is completely inoffensive to all members of a given learning community.  While there are a myriad of reasons behind why a particular book might be challenged, some of the top reasons (as gathered by the American Library Association) include sexually explicit content, offensive language, and violence.  (Though, I would have to say that some of the best books that I’ve read contain all three.).  Unsurprisingly, pressures to ban certain books come overwhelmingly from parents.

While it is understandable that parents would want to be cautious about their child’s exposure to violence, sexually explicit content, and other more “adult” issues in books (and there are certainly books that are not suitable for all ages), as students, educators, and members of a literary community we must be aware the censorship is, by its nature, threatening..  In an 2012 article published in Huffington Post, Bill Moyers explains the danger of censorship by stating, “Censorship is the enemy of truth -- even more than a lie. A lie can be exposed; censorship can prevent us knowing the difference.”  A society in which thoughts and ideas are repressed, erased, or inaccessible is a society in which knowledge becomes distorted and dialogue ceases to exist.  The driving force behind education (whether you are a third grader, a college student, or an adult lifelong learner) is not mindless absorption of information, but rather an active process of questioning, debating, discussing, and sometimes even doubting.  The best learned lessons are the ones where individuals are free to think outside generally accepted social parameters and confront ideas that are not within their social, religious, or moral world view.  When we come across ideas that are contrary, distorted, or even damaging to reason, our response should not be to erase and eradicate, but instead to speak truth.  The engaging experience of reading literature does not stop when the pages of the book stop speaking, but rather after we have spoken to the book (and our fellow readers) in return.

Elizabeth Fritsch is a senior at Silver Lake College.
She is majoring in English (with an emphasis on teaching)
and minoring in History and Theology.
Her favorite 'banned book' is The Catcher in the Rye.