Laura Murphy wants people to know that she is no book burner . . . just a book banner. The Fairfax County mother of four has been campaigning to ban the Pulitzer-prize-winning American novel “Beloved” from the school system due to its depictions of bestiality, rape, and murder. She says that her teenage son read the book as a senior in his Advanced Placement English class and was traumatized with nightmares as a result. Now she wants to ban the book for any child to read.
“Beloved” depicts the harrowing life of a mother who killed her child to protect it from a life in bondage. In receiving the Pulitzer prize, the citation says that Toni Morrison wrote “novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, giv[ing] life to an essential aspect of American reality.” That however is a bit too much reality for Murphy. She has campaigned for six months to ban the book and school board members are now reading the book as part of the long appellate process.
The fact that this book is being read by seniors in advanced placement English is a particularly important fact. Murphy’s son is one year from college and being sent into the world as an adult. He wanted to take advanced English which deals with a higher level of reading and reading material. Even if his mom succeeds in banning this book, he will face the same nightmares in college where such books are common.
I respect Murphy’s commitment to her child and her work as a member on school committees. However, her protection of her son from these forms of literature does not serve his interests any more than banning it for others. These books can shock and disturb students. However, they also challenge their preconceptions and expose them to extraordinary writing. Indeed, it is Morrison’s passion and skills as a writer that produces such intense responses.
Murphy insists that “I’m not some crazy book burner.” No, she would be a book banner who (for students and teachers wanting to read this book in school) is like a book burner without the fire.
Source: Washington Post
Re Toni Morrison and others.
“Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford;[1] February 18, 1931) is an American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon and Beloved. She also was commissioned to write the libretto for a new opera, Margaret Garner, first performed in 2005. She won the Nobel Prize in 1993 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Beloved. On 29 May 2012, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.” Wikipedia Toni Morrison.
Let us not fail to praise a little French book publisher who saved some of these treasures for a more mature world and the edification of those prepared to read them then.
And also Anais Ninn, whose works I can not describe, but who was certainly one of those defending women’s sexual rights, long before the pill and Women’s Lib.
Rafflaw hit the nail on the head. And Betty Kath was nudging at it.
That this young man was disturbed to the point of nightmares could be an indication of several causes (there we are again).
One, that he has experienced his life as one of violation and bondage simiilar to that the book portrays.
Two….that he has been over protected.
Three–that it shows a vision of life that horrifies or deeply depressies him.
Myself at age 14 experienced a lecture for the whole high school by a visiting physics professor with loud sound effects.
What depressed me profoundly was his revelation that the second law of thermodynamics says the clock of the universe will run down sometime in the future. That there are more proximate dangers, like the consumption of earth when the sun becomes a red giant, I did not know
Life seemed meaningless to me.
What name do we give the phenomenon that this mom represents, assuming it is nationwide?
blhlls has hit the nail on the head.
A few words left out….. Margaret was raped by her “owner”, Gaines. Her children were his “property” and his progeny.
The story about a slave woman killing her young children rather than having them grow in slavery is true. Margaret Garner was a runaway facing capture and a return to slavery. She killed one child and planned to kill her 3 other children. Did she kill them to keep them from slavery? or did she kill them to deprive her “owner” of his “property” since it seemed apparent that the children were the result of her by Gaines, her “owner”. She subject to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and returned to Gaines who sold her to a plantation far away from her husband. She was never tried for the killing of her child.
You can read more here: http://www.margaretgarner.org/MargaretGarnerBrief.pdf
Toni Morrison is a powerful writer and her books should be read, not “burned”. Perhaps the woman who is pressing this has a problem herself in learning the lessons of slavery and what it does to people.
rafflaw:
I live in Fairfax, some of the parents here are really kooky. Very competitive and many are evangelical Christians who havent met a probe they dont like or a book they do like [unless it is the book of books, the tome of the tomb, the…, well you get my point].
In Fairfax everyone is someone even if they arent. So I can well believe the story, as I used to see it all around me on a daily basis when I had children in public shool [which by the way are pretty darn good].
Some of the crap that the education system foist upon the students is amazing. But then again, one mans trash is another mans treasure. I’ll take the Bible over Nickled and Dimed any day.
The crazies are out in force again.
This story smells fishy. There is no way that a high school senior would have nightmares from reading this book. If this would give him nightmares, then he has other more pressing issues to deal with.
When I was a freshman in high school, I had to get parental permission to read “Catcher in the Rye” which was exceedingly “controversial” at the time because, of all things, Holden sees the word “f*ck” on a wall and is concerned his little sister would see and not understand what it meant and its implications. Starting young, I read the so-called “banned in Boston” books which later became literary treasures. Rather than being stunted or traumatized by them, I found I was embracing a broader perspective on people and the world for which I am eternally grateful. We all need to be shaken out of our cozy constricted belief boxes. That to me is the whole purpose of education and great writing. So if Laura Murphy wanted to “protect” her son from the realities of life as found in books, that was fine with me. BUT her crusade to “protect” others is censorship. Let others decide for themselves whether to read or not to read! If they choose not to, that’s their loss.
If she is on the Christian right-wing, I wouldn’t be surprised.
I have to disagree with a sweeping statement that a policy decision that a certain book won’t be part of the school classroom curriculum is the same as banning it, and the implication that a parent requesting that the school review whether a particular book should be used as part of the classroom curriculum is an attempt to ban the book. I have ready many books which I would not consider to be an appropriate addition to a classroom curriculum, and some I would consider worth fighting to have removed from the curriculum if they were included. On the other hand, the idea that a good book should be eliminated from the high school curriculum because it is disturbing seems to fly in the face of what a literature course should be. The fact that the mother believes her senior in high school should not be exposed to disturbing literature is another reason to fear for the future.
What was it that worried this mother? Was she afraid her son would realize that bondage and slavery is worse than death? Was she afraid that he son would hear that slaves weren’t better off under slavery than they would have been free? What part of the realty of Slavery did she feel her son needed to be protected from? Does she allow him to go to the movies? There so much violence that is worthless and gratuitous but she focuses on this book. I feel very sorry for her son. If she could shed burn it. I am tired to this type of person being able to drive the conversation and sometimes the policies of “education”.
it’s even worse, according to the article her son is now in college, so she is continuing this ridiculous stunt to “protect” other students.
The news about 20 first-graders being gunned down by a lunatic gives me nightmares. A work of fiction, not so much. I’m going with the “opt-out” option. If the pearl-clutching, helicopter mom wants to “protect” her son from such gritty fiction, who am I to stop her? But I deeply resent her desire to keep MY teen from good fiction. On the other hand, my daughter’s class is reading Atlas Shrugged. If they can read it without falling asleep, they’ll be able to analyze a sententious rant when they encounter it in the future. It’s not particularly good fiction, but it IS a player in today’s culture wars. If the kids learn analytical reading, they’re the richer for it.
BTW–a legislator in Idaho’s statehouse wants to make Atlas Shrugged REQUIRED for every student in the Idaho public schools. Now, THAT gives me nightmares.
They better burn that bible that they consider so sacred…… I hear tel thar rape, incest and murder in there tooooo…
The banning of books to “protect” children has been a recurring theme since this country began and is prevalent in many other countries. In my lifetime some of the greatest works in 20th Century literature were “banned” because of their content, usually sexual. James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller were some of the great writers banned from having their books even published in this country until the late 50’s. This doesn’t even take into account the “chilling effect” this mindset had on other writers whose editors “toned down” their manuscripts to avoid “banning”. Banning is book burning whether this woman realizes it or not. Part of the process of maturation is running across material that shocks ones sensibilities. Those parents that take such care in “protecting” their children do them no service.
The DC area seems filled with “pearl clutching” parents who won’t let their children grow-up or do things that aren’t heavily micromanaged. I’ve taught the result of this and it’s not pretty. I’m assuming this isn’t required reading and even if was someone could browse through it and then ask to opt-out and read something else on a related topic. DC area schools are used to assertive parents.
They seem to have banned the U.S. Constituion, so why not dirty books?
I imagine some folk dont do well when they realize what slavery did to and does to a human being.
I guess some people think “out of site, out of mind.”