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1984 Should Be Banned Essay

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1984: An Unfortunate Banning
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
Salman Rushdie, British-Indian author (1947-) Books are generally banned or challenged because a person or group objects the main idea or portions of the book. The banning removes the material from the community whereas a challenge is an attempt to ban a book in an area, and these book bannings are often considered a violation of freedom of speech. An example of a book that was banned is 1984 by George Orwell. This book involves the titular character Winston, and his accomplice, Julia, attempting to take down a monolithic government that surveils everyone’s movements. Within the story, Winston had the job of changing previous news to …show more content…

A community that challenged this book was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a communist nation from 1922 to 1991 which frequently banned books, such as 1984, if they were to go against the Soviet’s beliefs regarding their government and the actions they took to control the country. Therefore, the impact of this is that people, especially children, are not exposed to different governments; this is shutting down vital details about the idea of illegal surveillance; and the vulgar material that children need to grasp is being censored. The causation of the book’s challenging was due to the inclusion of …show more content…

Although the Soviet Union may have banned it because it violated their ideas and parents may have thought it was too violent, it teaches children to develop their own behavior and characteristics rather than the government deciding how someone is to live. This dissuades people from not being aware of authoritarian governments that can destroy one’s freedom, especially

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To support his claim, Weller adds that Bradbury’s article for The Nation in 1953 clearly shows that censorship was at the “forefront of his mind” when he wrote the novel. Thus, he successfully clarifies the controversial issue regarding the theme of censorship in Fahrenheit 451. A memorable saying I picked up from this article is, “Fahrenheit 451 is less about Big Brother and more about Little Sister” (Bradbury). By this, Weller explains that in Bradbury’s fictional universe, “Big Brother is less instrumental in the censorship of books than the citizens themselves who no longer care about the joy of reading.” Although Huxley’s Brave New World is similar to Fahrenheit 451, I prefer the latter, because it is simpler and easier to relate it to the world today.

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