Why We Should In Cold Blood Be Banned

Controversy over the choice of books used to teach within schools has many parents questioning whether a book is appropriate for a school setting. Truman Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood, is a perfect example of a novel that tests the limits with the content placed in the book. Within Capote’s novel, he discusses many topics that parents find inappropriate for teachers to teach to their children. The Windsor Forest High School, in Savannah, Georgia, banned this book, “when a parent complained about sex, violence, and profanity …” (Banned and Challenged Classics). Although the novel, In Cold Blood, includes words and slurs teenager use in their daily vocabulary, it should be banned within schools due to the difficult and sensitive topics addressed

One of the main characters, Perry Smith, had a childhood ruined by his mother’s addiction to multiple substances, including alcohol, as well as witnessing his father physically abuse his mother. When Perry’s father, Tex, was writing to the Parole Board to help get him out on parole, Tex wrote that “…liquor blurred the face, swollen the figure of the once sinewy, limber Cherokee girl… honed her tongue to the wickedest point, so dissolved in her self-respect that generally she did not bother to ask the names of the stevedores and trolley car conductors and such persons who accepted what she offered without charge…” (Capote 127). The mother of Perry, Flo, turned to alcohol and promiscuity when the father started to abuse Flo. Smith would become used to the constant flow of strange men in and out of the house. Due to the fact that Tex and Flo showed little attention on their children, they were almost always left without supervision and guidance. In addition, Perry, himself, also had an addiction, he was addicted to aspirin. This is due to “the accident had occurred in 1952, his chunky, dwarfish legs, broken in five places and pitifully scarred, still pained him to this day…” (Capote 30). What started off as a way to reduce the pain in his legs, turned into something much more serious. The addiction that was formed lasted many years, due to his love of the taste as

When kept in the curriculum, it can have a portion of students uncomfortable in a classroom when discussing the topics because of events that took place within their lives. Racism is a continuing problem in the twentieth century, and continues to be a problem in the twenty first century. During Perry’s time in an orphanage, there were nurses who “… hated me… being half-Indian. There was this one nurse, she used to call me ‘nigger’ and say there wasn’t any difference between niggers and Indians” (Capote 128). Racism is still occurring well into the twenty-first century, but with a new aspect, social media. The rise of social media helps the ideas of hatred spread around faster than ever. “The rapid growth of race hate speech on the internet seems to have overwhelmed the capacity of states, corporations, or civil society…” (Jakubowicz 1). With new technological advances, the message of hate is finding new ways to spread, and a classroom is the place a student should not expect a degrading word to be used. To illustrate the severity of Dick’s state of mind, Capote uses immense detail regarding his preferences regarding relationships. During his interrogation, Dick reflects on his actions and comes to the realization that “‘…the main reason I went to there was not to rob them but to rape the girl… I did not