Many think book burnings took place in times past and certainly not in the last century, but that was the case in the fall of 1973. A school board protested against Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s book Slaughterhouse-Five, on the grounds that it was unsuited for children. Their mode of protest? Book burning. The school instructed the school janitor to burn the book in question, in the school furnace. Vonnegut Jr., in reply, wrote a letter, “You Have Insulted Me”, to the chairman of the school board. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., after one of his books were burned by a school, wrote a scathing letter that upon analyzing can be seen is full of excellent arguments to try to convince the school what it did was terribly wrong.
Vonnegut, Jr. has many different arguments in his letter. He writes, “If you were to
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bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind.
They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are.” (Vonnegut, Jr.). Vonnegut, Jr. argues that his books were not written to lead young people astray, like the school board believes. He wrote his books to ask people to kinder and more responsible. The school board accuses him of not being the very two things his books ask others to be. Vonnegut, Jr. also writes, “Perhaps you will learn from this that books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations, which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.” (Vonnegut, Jr.). He writes that it is every American’s duty to allow all ideas to be spoken freely in the community, not just the ideas that benefit certain people. He argues that books are sacred because they hold ideals and ideas that are very important to free men, who know their importance. Vonnegut, Jr. argues,
“After I have said all this, I am sure you are still ready to respond, in effect, “Yes, yes—but it still remains our right and our responsibility to decide what books our children are going to read in our community.” That is surely so. But it is also true that if you exercise that right and fulfill that responsibility in an ignorant, un-American manner, then people are entitled to call you bad citizens and fools.” (Vonnegut, Jr.). Here Vonnegut, Jr. argues that if they try to control their children in an ignorant and un-American manner, people can and will call them bad citizens and fools. Vonnegut, Jr. is saying that one should never burn books to show that that book is not acceptable for a child to read. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.s’ arguments were all valid and supported with good reasons. He argues that his books were not written with the intention of leading people astray. Vonnegut, Jr. supports this argument by adding that the only reason his characters had coarse language was because that was the reality. He says that he added such details because ordinary, normal people often speak coarsely and even the smallest of children know that. By adding this statement, he strengthens his argument and shows the chairman that he is simply trying to fight reality. Vonnegut, Jr. tries to convince the chairman that every American should stand for and defend the right to free speech. He also tells the chairman that all ideas should be allowed to spoken in a community, not just ideas that only benefit certain people. Vonnegut, Jr. says that books are precious to free men because they know their value. He tries to convince the chairman that citizens of country who has fought for freedom of speech and expression should not be burning any books for the sake of censorship. And lastly, Vonnegut Jr., says that adults have the right and responsibility to monitor what children read, but if they carry out that right in an ignorant manner, they are being fools. Vonnegut Jr., is upset about the fact, that instead of responsibly carrying out their duty of restricting the books, they burned them! Vonnegut Jr. wrote a short, but scathing letter full of well-supported and reasonable arguments. Vonnegut Jr. only wanted this letter to change the minds of the school board, but now this letter has become a powerful tool against censorship. He asked the school board that they expose their children to many different viewpoints and judgments so that their children can truly be prepared for life. This is a piece of advice that can be used even now. In this letter, he raised many excellent points about censorship and supported them with well thought out reasons and evidence. Vonnegut Jr. ends his letter with a plea to the school board to admit what they did was wrong, censoring books they hadn’t even read. And as Joseph Brodsky once said, “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
The Board of Education of the Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26, including Richard Ahrens (President of the Board of Education), Frank Martin (Vice President), Christina Fasulo, Patrick Hughes, Richard Melchers, Richard Michaels, and Louis Nessim (Board Members), presented the issue of banning books from the Island Trees High School and the Island Trees Memorial Junior High School, after they attended a conference by Parents of New York United, or PONYU (Board of Education v…). The Board of Education took any book that was “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy” to the Board of Education’s Office (Board of Education, Island…).
...dons the glimmer of hope that accompanies the fact that life has its moments of grandeur. He encourages the modern reader to escape the question "why me" and urges us to embrace a philosophy that consistently reminds us that even in the midst of the most cruel (and the most celebrated) events, humanity retains all of its virtue and vice. So it goes. Vonnegut allows us to laugh out loud, despite the tragedies of war and the anxiety of the post-modern world. His picture of the modern man is simultaneously dismal and hopeful. His unique style, satiric overview and astute ability to capture the multiple faces of mankind, properly place him in the realm of the most accomplished authors of the Twentieth Century.
These school boards and parents can claim that banning this classic will protect their children from these subjects and these thoughts, and that by doing so, they can create the world to be a perfect place with love and harmony. The religious can claim all the righteousness they want, that God made the civilized man and that without religion, we wouldn’t be where we are today. However, the true nature of these subjects isn’t in that they exist, but the fact that we simply just don’t want to think or admit that they exist within ourselves. We need to use this book as a textbook to life, or a sort of guiding hand that tells us we need to realize that without our civilizations and without our rules, the world would be a much ruthless place than it is today.
In the article 10 Reasons for Banning Books and 5 Much Better Reasons not to, it states that the books teach us vocabulary, history, and new ways of thinking. “Every year I receive at least a dozen invitations to be commencement speaker at colleges and high schools. My books are probably more widely used in schools than those of any other living American fiction writer.”-excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut’s letter. Books are known for their choice of complex vocabulary. We use non-fictional books to learn about real events in history. Non-fictional books and articles show children a new way of thinking. Many books are used in an educational
Kurt Vonnegut, the author of Slaughterhouse-Five, provided a powerful first-hand account describing the horrific events of WWII. Vonnegut recounted the events and wrote about himself through the novels protagonists, Billy Pilgrim. He was pessimistic regarding the novel because he wrote, “It is so short and jumbled and jangled, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre” (Vonnegut 22). However, on the other spectrum critics considered it to be “one of the worlds greatest antiwar books”(Vonnegut Back cover). The controversial novel was published in 1969, which was over two decades after WWII. The time it took Vonnegut to write the novel is an indication of how difficult it was for him to write about the bombings. Vonnegut does not write the novel to portray the narrator as, “John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war loving, dirty old men” (Vonnegut 14). Instead, he writes about the true chaos’s the narrator endured during his time in Dresden. Vonnegut’s novel consisted of events that reflected major societal and political movements, such as civil rights movements, and antiwar movements, within the United States during the 1960s.
With a spout of kerosene and a flick of a match, a fireman sets fire to a house and all the books inside it, not waiting for the heat to reach 451 degrees farhenheit; the temperature in which it is said books ignite. This may seem a strange thing, a fireman setting fire, but in the futuristic world author Ray Bradbury created in his work Farhenheit 451(1951) this is the norm. A fireman's job is to hunt those with books and set destroy all the books with thier flames. In the Bradbury's book, the government has deemed books and all who possess them public enemy Number One, and society has accepted that with no questions asked. Books represent knowledge, difference of opinion and ideals that are now unsavory in the public's eye.
Satire in American literature has evolved in response to the development of the American mind, its increasing use of free will, and the context that surrounds this notion. Satire is the biting wit that authors (labeled satirists) bring to their literature to expose and mock the follies of society. Satirists can be divided, however, into two groups with very different purposes. One type mocks simply for the enjoyment of mocking. These satirists are found almost everywhere in the world, on every street corner, household, and television sitcom. It is the second type of satirist who is a strong force in the world of literature. The satirical author will mock to heighten the reader's awareness of the problems that threaten to destroy the world that they believe has so much potential. They do this with the hope that their satire will encourage others to better society. "I have often hoped that the arts could be wonderfully useful in times of trouble" (32) says the writer who is perhaps the king of this second type of American satire, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Vonnegut uses his literature to help guide a disillusioned America, in which free will has been fundamental since the writing of the Constitution. As a humanist, Vonnegut uses the idea of free will as a constant motif in his writing. He believes that every soul has the freedom to do anything, but that the problem with society is that people lack direction. Free will, used as a theme in Timequake, is an enormous responsibility. Acknowledging the free will that one has also involves accepting the responsibility that is necessary to use this privilege in a way that will benefit humanity. In several essay...
American were treated equal lies right by Fall Creek. Vonnegut was nothing if not a Hoosier.
The Doctrines of Kurt Vonnegut The writing of Kurt Vonnegut exhibits perception without restriction and imagination without limitation. It surpasses mountains of ignorance and rivers of innocence to extend emotions for society to sympathize with reality. He incorporates his knowledge and view-points into a variety of literary genres for everyone to learn of his inquiries and philosophies. To draw readers into his sphere of influence, Kurt Vonnegut administers an inflection on the present to state other tenses
Is it not on the normal we hear about PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) from former veterans go through. They struggle to keep calm and collected visiting through flashbacks from war and maybe other memories that may not be true. Facing trying to have a normal life after being a prisoner of war (POW). Kurt Vonnegut writes using the setting he seen in his life, making a war drama from a first person experience making it fictional at the same time an autobiography. Being free from war is just illusive according to Kurt Vonnegut. Even though I never been to war I see him trying to show that war hinders us mentally through encounters in war.
Envision a world that is so structured and censored that fireman exist not to fight fire but instead burn books. In Fahrenheit 451 this is the reality of the citizens that live in this time. In the book not many people realize that every story has a writer but think that it is just mindless words that mean absolutely nothing. Throughout the story books are looked at as dangerous, therefore, they burn every book they can get their hands on. Everyone in life is affected by media just like in Fahrenheit 451. Media tells them to just go along without questioning it such as books.
Kurt Vonnegut was born on November 11th 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana. His parents, Kurt Vonnegut Sr. and Edith Leiber Vonnegut were hit particularly hard by the great depression and his family was financially unstable for most of his childhood. Vonnegut studied at Cornell University, where he double majored in chemistry and biology. Shortly after graduation, Vonnegut enlisted in the United States Army and was deployed to Germany once America entered World War II. Around this time, Vonnegut’s mother committed suicide. Vonnegut was deeply traumatized by the event and never truly forgave his mother during his lifetime. In 1944, he was captured by Nazi troops and placed in a prisoner of war camp in Dresden, Germany. Vonnegut was a survivor of
Kurt Vonnegut Served as a sensitive cell in the organism of American Society during the 1960's. His work alerted the public about the absurdity of modern warfare and an increasingly mechanized and impersonal society in which humans were essentially worthless and degenerated. The satirical tone and sardonic humor allowed people to read his works and laugh at their own misfortune.
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).
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... ...