1984 as a Banned Book Essay

Position Essay

Nineteen Eighty-Four, a book by George Orville has been on the banned book list almost since it was first published in 1949. Why you might ask? There is no profane language, nor lurid sex scenes that have been the cause for other banning of books. It has nothing which would usually constitute the banning of a book. However what Nineteen Eighty-Four does have is the ability to make its readers think. Its full of thought provoking knowledge and for that it was banned. When most want to know however, is why such an insightful and mentally stimulating book was banned. It is the the thought provoking ability of this book that should keep it off the banned book list.

Ironically, in Nineteen Eighty-Four the government bans certain books and other objects, people, and lifestyles because they would have caused the people to think and therefore see that they were being persecuted and ignorant about the true state of their country. This book has been banned for the worst of reasons, for educating people. Not in the way that our schools educate us, but in the way that cause people to question, to rise up, and to revolt against what they know in their hearts is not right. In banning a book, there is fallout that isn't accounted for; it makes people afraid to read a book, it causes them to go into a book looking for faults opposed to reading it for its meaning, and when a book is banned it becomes taboo making it less likely to be removed from that list because of peoples fear of change.

Nineteen Eighty-Four should not be banned. Period. This book has countless additions to society that will unread by young future leaders; whether they're leaders or revolters; everyone in this country deserves the right to the knowledge and ability of free thought, and free speech, which are intertwined in this world. This book, Nineteen Eighty-Four lets people out there, ones who don't follow the government word for word realize that they can do something, it sheds light on things that may be happening before it comes to a climax. The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries, because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is constantly rising. After reading this for the first time, a spark went off in my mind; I knew that I had just absorbed something that i could utilize for the rest of my life, whether it be with governments or corporations. Nineteen Eighty-Four is filled with these, to the brim; pages after pages of these wonderful things, but how do we get to them? Nineteen Eighty-Four is banned.

For no reason but reasoning itself Nineteen Eighty-Four has been banned. Nineteen Eighty-Four should be part of every major educational curriculum; it is so important to have books such as this being read by todays youth that it pains me to see this book on the banned list, so much that I've gone an written an essay about it. It is detrimental to our evolution to ban books as thought provoking as Nineteen Eighty-Four. By banning Nineteen Eighty-Four and its thought provoking ideas it mentally stunts our growth and facilitates those out there that want to keep us ignorant.