Censorship

              There are many reasons that certain novels may be deemed inappropriate for kids to read in school.  Some of those novels and some of those reasons will be discussed throughout the duration of this paper.  The Giver, The Lord of the Flies, and The Chocolate War are just a few of the novels that have been banned throughout many schools.  Somehow these novels are related to each other and have similar plots.  Hopefully a little bit of a background on each of these novels will lead to an answer on why these novels are banned and why they are looked down upon by our society. 

              The Giver, written by Lois Lowry, was banned in many schools for a certain reason.  “The Giver has ranked as one of the most commonly challenged books in public and school libraries.”(American Ways)  The Giver is about a society that is a virgin to pain, change, feelings, hurt, and color.  They are a sort of secluded society that everyone is supposed to follow.  There are many rules that the people are to abide by and live by since the day they are born.  All of a sudden the novel takes a turn and there is one child that is separated from the rest of the town.  Jonas has been chosen to become the next Giver.  To become the next Giver he has to go to the Giver of his time to receive memories of the town he lives in whether they are good or bad.  As Jonas is receiving these memories he begins to think different than the rest of the people in his town.  He begins to feel pain and see color and experiences many different feelings that he has never felt before.  Jonas soon realizes that the society that he is living in is not the way that it should be.  He decides to leave the town and takes one other with him.  He takes a young boy by the name of Gabriel and he leaves the town for good.  After he leaves the town he realizes that he has done the right thing.  For now he is able to experience what all the others have been missing out on for a number of years.  A person could sum up this story very simply by saying that the novel is about a boy who breaks away from society and goes against all odds. 

              The next novel that has been banned in many schools is called The Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding.  This novel is about a school of boys who were aboard a plane that had gotten shot down over a remote island.  All of the grownups that were aboard the plane died and only kids were left.  The kids set up a small sort of government on the island that everyone was to abide by.  The boys soon built little huts and a community was fast evolving, though they soon “revert to their natural savagery.”(Carson)  The kids set up a plan to be rescued and even had a call that would bring them together as a group in case anything important was to happen.  The kids have what they think to be a great system going, until over the next few weeks the kids start to form separate gangs.  The gangs begin to fight with each other and soon the kids forget what their main problem actually is.  The kids need to get off the island and to do so they need to cooperate with each other.  The kids end up killing some of their classmates before they are rescued.  When they are rescued they realize what savages they have become and they regret some of their actions.  If a person were to summarize this book they could say that the boys broke away from a more unified way of life to a more unruly type of order. 

              The novel that was just read in class was The Chocolate War, written by Robert Cormier.  The Chocolate War was about a group of kids who form a gang within their school and make other kids act in ways they would not want.  The kids perform bizarre acts throughout the whole novel however, there is one boy who stands out and goes against all odds.  Jerry goes against his school, his classmates, and his peers.  He goes out of his way to not sell any chocolates by saying no to Brother Leon when he asks him to sell the chocolates.  By Jerry doing this he breaks away from the norm of everyone else.  If a person were to summarize this novel in a nutshell the plot would mainly focus on the act of Jerry breaking away from the rest of his class and not selling his chocolates. 

              All of these novels have a similar trait that seem to be very obvious.  As a person can tell the novels have a main character or characters that seem to break away from the norm of society.  Jerry, Ralphie, and Jonas all have very similar traits with respect to the society they are in.  These are all examples of what a boy is not supposed to do in real life.  Certain novels may be banned for the reason that they may influence younger boys to break away from what they are supposed to do or what they are expected to do in society.  By reading a banned book it didn’t really affect me in any way.  I didn’t really bother me when the characters in the novel broke away from what seemed to be the only way to do things.  “Censorship is a situation that brings those who seek to preserve their own ideology and values into conflict with those who support intellectual freedom.”(Vrabel)