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Tigerlily
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Joined: 22 Jul 2006
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Birthday: 7th July
Location: Shropshire
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 Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 1:24 pm Post subject: 785 dirty words |
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http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/censored/words.html
785 Dirty Words
| Quote: | | Every one of the books in this long list has been censored, most of them repeatedly. Parents, teachers, librarians, school boards, and booksellers have found themselves and their sensibilities challenged by the words between these covers. Even in this lineup, Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger's epic coming-of-age story from the 1950s, stands out as one of the most censored books of all time. Condemned for qualities that "promote perversion," this book has been proclaimed "immoral," "anti-white," "rebellious," and "profane." One parent counted 785 "dirty words" and proclaimed the book to be "Communist." As you look at these familiar titles, consider whether you find them all to be suitable for yourself, your children, or your grandmother. In many challenges, those objecting to the material haven't read more than a few passages. Can literature be fairly judged if it is not treated as a whole work? Or, are there some words and ideas that are simply too dangerous or offensive to be read? |
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Reading: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Reading Challenge 2009: 8
2008: 4
2007: 10 |
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Tigerlily
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Joined: 22 Jul 2006
Posts: 7637
Birthday: 7th July
Location: Shropshire
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| Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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Here's the list of books that have been censored:
The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha - Cervantes
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - A. Conan Doyle
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
Arabian Nights As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Benjamin Franklin
The Awakening - Kate Chopin
The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver
Black Boy - Richard Wright
Book of Common Prayer - Church of England
Camille - Alexandre Dumas
Candide - Voltaire
Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean Auel
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
Deer Park - Norman Mailer
Deliverance - James Dickey
Doctor Zhivago - Boris Lionidovich Pasternak
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Droll Stories - Balzac
Dubliners - James Joyce
Elmer Gantry - Sinclair Lewis
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Go Tell It On the Mountain - James Baldwin
The Group - Mary McCarthy
Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
Hamlet - Shakespeare
Howl, and Other Poems - Allen Ginsberg
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
The Koran
A Lesson Before Dying - Ernest Gaines
Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
My House - Nikki Giovanni
Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs
Never Love a Stranger - Harolds Robbins
Nineteen eighty-four - George Orwell
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
Ordinary People - Judith Guest
The Ox-Bow Incident - Walter Van Tilburg Clark
The Prince - Machiavelli
Rabbit, Run - John Updike
The Red Pony - John Steinbeck
The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Separate Peace - John Knowles
Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Soul on Ice - Eldridge Cleaver
Strange Fruit - Lillian Eugenia Smith
A Summary View of the Rights of British America - Thomas Jefferson
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley
Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell
Voyages to the Moon and the Sun - Cyrano de Bergerac
Women in Love - D.H. Lawrence
Are there any here you agree could offend readers? Or are there any you don't think should be on the list?
I can understand how Gone With the Wind can offend or cause discomfort. Not sure why Tess is there, but then it's been a while since I read it, and was it people of its day who condemned it and we now don't see the problem?
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Reading: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Reading Challenge 2009: 8
2008: 4
2007: 10 |
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Daniela-26
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Joined: 06 May 2007
Posts: 683
Location: Bedfordshire
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| Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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I am quite surprised by a number of these. It just goes to show how perceptions change over time...can you imagine how many books would be banned today if we didn't mention adultery or sexuality?!
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Reading: The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
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