Judy Blume's Essay 'Censorship: A Personal View'

639 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Censorship in modern society

Tyra Smith Dr.Franklin English 1020-203 15 September 2014 Judy Blume’s essay entitled “Censorship: A Personal View,” attempts to explain her rationale for creating literary works for children and young adults that have been banned or restricted due to inappropriate content. Blume’s clever use of anecdotes, diction, and ethos theorizes her opinion that children are never too young to experience post adolescent concepts. Throughout her essay, Blume incorporates the use of anecdotes to describe her many banned books, through personal accounts and through the accounts of various readers. In her personal anecdote, she recounts readers’ personal stories of how her books were judged because of critics describing them as inappropriate for younger readers. Blume faced social stigma from …show more content…

She went about telling the readers controversy caused by her choice of words in her books. As a writer she faced many harsh critiques on her work, and a lot of negativity that interfered with her personal life and her writing career. Parents found it strange that Blume’s books were teaching their children at a young age that certain topics were okay. Blume thought otherwise referring to her work as being a perfect opportunity to engage young readers with issues that the normal child or teenager may go through. To many her work was despised causing many of her books to become restricted, banned, and taken off shelves. Blume italicized words in her essay such as puberty and masturbation to introduce her readers to examples of why her books were continuously restricted. An example of diction used in Blume’s essay is a story she told about the parents perspective of her books. It was expressed in her essay numerous stories of how irate parents went about criticizing her books. “ The mother who admitted that she’d cut two pages out of “Then Again, Maybe I Won’t than allow her almost thirteen- year old son to read about wet dreams.”(Blume

Show More
Related

  • Pat Conroy Analysis

    702 Words  | 2 Pages

    His readers now see his perspective and why books should not be banned. It is clear the Conroy used the rhetorical devices in a planned way. This allowed him to create a letter designed to persuade the readers in a way that appealed to their emotions. He used positive and negative diction, positive and negative imagery, and conjunctions in a way that would grab the reader's’ attention leading them to believe banning books is ultimately censoring students from the harsh realities that the world has to offer. This is leaving them censored and ignorant to the truth of the

    Read More

  • Go Ask Alice Paper

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    For younger readers this book carries very strong language but it has a strong message. One of those is that it shows what students will do for drugs. While researching the book you discover that in South Carolina, Berkley County school district, was one of the first to pull the book from schools and libraries. This occurred after a mom protested the book when her 8th grade daughter had to read little experts from the book to her classmates. The students mother did not want her to be reading a book with so much profanity and references to sex. One of the most controversial lines that comes from the book is when Alice writes in her journal “Another day, another blow-job”. She doe...

    Read More

  • The Banning Of The Book Forever By Judy Blume

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    This controversial book has been challenged in countless states for many years. In 1997 the Elgin, Illinois school district banned the book from middle school libraries. Catherine explained that the book was banned because “talk of masturbation, birth control, and disobedience to parents occurred”

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Censorship A Personal View By Judy Bulme

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article censorship: a personal view by Judy bulme she discusses and touches on censorship in literature in children and young adolescence books. Now in article there are a lot of possible exigencies listed threw out the article one of the main exigencies is that Judy bulme has personal experience with censorship as a little girl, with that personal account she has familiarity that compels and gives her credibility to write this article. With exigencie their also comes a purpose bulme’s purpose in the article is trying to convince parents that you should not coddle a young teen or an adolescent from literature that may not be suitable for them, but let their mind wonder and explain it after they read it. Also she communicates that censorship

    Read More

  • The Paradox Of Censorship In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

    1268 Words  | 3 Pages

    Often, dystopian novels are written by an author to convey a world that doesn’t exist, but criticizes aspects of the present that could lead to this future. Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in 1951 but discusses issues that have only increased over time. The encompassing issue that leads to the dystopic nature of this novel is censorship of books. The government creates a world in which it is illegal to have any books. Firemen are enforcers of this law by being the ones to burn the books and burn the buildings where the books were found. By censoring the knowledge found in books, the government attempts to rid the society of corruption caused by “the lies” books are filled with in hopes the people will never question. In Fahrenheit 451, censorship is a paradox.

    Read More

  • Opposition to Catcher in the Rye

    744 Words  | 2 Pages

    the book included considerable profanity and "filthy and profane" language that premoted premarital sex, homosexuality, and perversion, as

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451 as a Criticism of Censorship

    933 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ray Bradbury criticizes the censorship of the early 1950's by displaying these same themes in a futuristic dystopia novel called Fahrenheit 451. In the early 1950's Ray Bradbury writes this novel as an extended version of "The Fireman", a short story which first appears in Galaxy magazine. He tries to show the readers how terrible censorship and mindless conformity is by writing about this in his novel.

    Read More

  • Censorship In Fahrenheit 451, By Ray Bradbury

    1380 Words  | 3 Pages

    There was those who weren’t so thrilled with the idea of being cut off from loads of knowledge and the truth. The characters; Guy Montag, Clarisse McClellan, and Faber were a perfect example, in the novel, of the people who were still interested in books or actual thinking and education. This was the kind of crowd that would be considered a bad influence in society. These people weren’t “happy” with what they were offered and had. “We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren’t happy.”(Bradbury 78) Montag, the main character, was one of the most troubled ones, and it was repeatedly expressed in the book how he wasn’t really happy although others might’ve thought otherwise. He felt that he needed the content that was forbidden to him in order to ease his mind. “There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine” argues Montag while trying to convince Mildred that books are in fact helpful and can have a huge impact on people’s lives. (Bradbury 48) He wanted to try and understand books because he never had the chance to, and he felt as if he was missing out on a big amount of knowledge. Although there was some characters that weren’t happy with the censoring, but still thought there was hope, there were also some characters who just didn’t know what to do anymore. Suicide was a subject talked about quite a bit in this novel, and it involved Mildred, Montag’s wife. She acted as if

    Read More

  • The Banning of Books in American Schools

    1054 Words  | 3 Pages

    Trelease, Jim. "Book Banning Violates Children and Young Adult Freedoms." Book Banning. Ed. Ronnie D. Lankford. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. At Issue. Rpt. from "Censorship and Children's Books." Trelease-on-Reading.com. 2006.Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.

    Read More

  • Of Mice and Men

    2756 Words  | 6 Pages

    Scarseth, Thomas. "A Teachable Good Book: Of Mice and Men." Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints. Ed. Nicholas J. Karolides, Lee Burress, and John M. Kean. Scarecrow Press, 1993. 388-394. Rpt. in Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 11 Jan. 2012.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Strategies Analysis of Judy Bulme: Censorship a Personal View

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    Threw out the article judy blmue wrote about censorship a personal view she takes her readers on journey threw her eyes and makes them hop in her shoes to take a test drive threw her life and show her ins and outs of how she experience and dealt with censorship , with coming in contact ,learning ,and rebelling against it. She does in her article by using some clever yet effective ways of using the Rhetorical Strategies to get the reader to think a certain way and feel a certain way. Jude blume use the rhetorical strategies ethos, pathos, and logos to effectively persuade the reader and inform the reader that censorship is not up to a group of people but a personal choice.

    Read More

  • Banning Books

    4607 Words  | 10 Pages

    “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. The children are the real losers because they are the ones that are not able to read the classic works of literature which are the backbone of classroom discussions all across the United States.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Freedom In The Censors

    504 Words  | 2 Pages

    The idea of freedom can be seen throughout Collection 2 in our textbook. Freedom can be seen in the short story “The Censors” by Luisa Valenzuela when it talks about the freedom of speech. Addition to that, an article “A People’s History Of The 1963 March On Washington” by Charles Euchner shows freedom in its article when it talks about the segregation occurring to colored men. Lastly, freedom is shown in the graphic novel “Persepolis 2: The Story Of A Return” by Marjane Satrapi as it shows high restriction.

    Read More

  • Censorship in Schools

    3744 Words  | 8 Pages

    This burden often falls on teachers. The purpose of this research paper is to discuss censorship in schools and to argue that the censorship of books in the high school English curriculum is limiting and takes away literature that is meaningful to students. How a Book is Censored Brinkley describes a few actions that can lead to the censoring of a book in a school or school system: An expression of concern is simply a question about the material with overtones of disapproval; an oral complaint is an oral challenge to the contents of a work; a written complaint is a formal written challenge to the school about the contents of a work; and a public attack is a public statement challenging the contents of a work that is made outside of the school, usually to the media to gain support for further action (1999). Brinkley also points out an important difference between selection and censorship: Selection is the act of carefully choosing works for an English course that will be age-appropriate, meaningful, and fulfill objectives, while censorship is the act of excluding works that some con... ...

    Read More

  • The Importance of Censorship

    611 Words  | 2 Pages

    Censorship affects our society in many different ways, it affects the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the books we read, and many other aspects of our everyday lives. Even though many might argue that censorship doesn't really have a place in a society that emphases freedom of speech and the freedom to express oneself, but censorship is an essential and needed part of our growing society, it's needed in the television industry, the Internet, and the music industry. Censorship helps to make our world a better place because it creates a better environment for us to live in.

    Read More

More about Judy Blume's Essay 'Censorship: A Personal View'

Open Document