Censorship In Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man

To consolidate and legitimize his rule, the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of books of any schools of thought that would threaten his rule, or compare him to previous emperors. As time progressed, many more instances of book burning, political or not, occurred, such as the Lighthouse of Alexandria by the Romans or the Library of Congress by the British in the War of 1812. Mark Twain once said, “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.” When the topic of banning books is brought up, it tends to be a divisive issue, with people being either for or against it. One such book that stirred up controversy was Ralph Ellison's realistic fiction novel The Invisible Man. As with many

The Invisible Man acts as an important teacher for how a single decision can impact many people both positively and negatively. With The Invisible Man, a key benefit of keeping it is how it provides realistic issues and realistic approaches to those issues. When questioned about the explicit nature of his work, Ralph Ellison said, “Isn’t it ironic that all this fuss over protecting a 15 year old [sic] from certain facts of social life is done under the pretense of sex?” Ellison asked rhetorically. “If you look at what’s on television and pick up on the press you will see many things that would certainly prepare a 15-year-old for the facts of life.” (Benic 13). Furthermore, in her essay discussing the parental reasoning why books get banned, Erin Manning shines a light on the issue saying, “the vast majority of challenges to books involve parents, center around books available in schools, and deal with such issues as sexual explicitness, offensive language”, (Manning 158-162.). In the book, the issue presented is shown in a very natural way, with accurate descriptions of how a person may react, such

In Pennsylvania, it was banned by a Christian activist who disliked the racial and sexual messages of the book. In North Carolina, the offense lied in the fact that the book used the N-word excessively, and having “provoking” sexual content. However, it leads to fostering better decision making, as well as a teacher on how to handle high profile incidents, such as being near so many powerful people. Banning books is a slippery slope, and if we do not rectify our process, we may end up like the German Reich, who orchestrated the burning of any books they deemed “un-german” by their