Banning Catcher in the Rye Essay Example for Free

Banning Catcher in the Rye Essay The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger should not be banned in schools based solely on the fact that it is a controversial book that uses harsh language and sexual references. This book is J. D. Salinger’s freedom of speech, and it is a violation of the first amendment for schools to ban this book. This book is only offering an inside look into what teenagers go through in some point of their lives. According to the Los Angeles Times, The Catcher in the Rye’s, â€Å"†¦ profanity and sexual references drew scandalized reactions†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Rotella 18). Although this book has many sexual references, it is not in any way as explicit and as bad as what teenagers see and hear nowadays on television and in the world. Holden occasionally thinks and talks about sex: â€Å"Most guys at Pencey talked about having sexual intercourse with girls all the time. † (Salinger 48). The average teenager often thinks and talks about sex. It is not unusual for teenagers to do this. The profanity in this book is also not as bad as it may seem. Patty Salazar, a concerned mother and religious activist, claims that, â€Å"‘It uses the Lord’s name in vain 200 times’† (Rotella 17), but the curse words used in The Catcher in the Rye are nothing that teenagers have not heard before in their everyday lives. Banning The Catcher in the Rye in school is not acceptable. It is a violation of the first amendment, and it is nothing far from what teenagers encounter everyday. This book gives teenagers someone in literature that they are able to relate to in one way or another. The Catcher in the Rye is not a book that will corrupt young readers. The underlying theme of this book is loss of innocence. This loss occurs when a teenager makes the change to adulthood where he or she is obscured by phoniness. By banning this book from schools, the only thing that teenagers would be sheltered from is reality.

Invisible Man Essay: Values of the Invisible Man -- Invisible Man Essa

Values of the Invisible Man      Ã‚  Ã‚   Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is the story of an educated black man who has been oppressed and controlled by white men throughout his life. As the narrator, he is nameless throughout the novel as he journeys from the South, where he studies at an all-black college, to Harlem where he joins a Communist-like party known as the Brotherhood. Throughout the novel, the narrator is on a search for his true identity. Several letters are given to him by outsiders that provide him with a role: student, patient, and a member of the Brotherhood. One by one he discards these as he continues to grow closer to the sense of his true self. As the novel ends, he decides to hide in an abandoned cellar, plotting to undermine the whites. The entire story can be summed up when the narrator says "I'm an invisible man and it placed me in a hole- or showed me the hole I was in...." During the novel, the narrator comes to value several intangibles that eventually help to shape his identity. Throu gh his experiences and the people he has met, the narrator discovers the important value of his education, his invisibility, and his grandfather's advice.    From the very beginning of the novel the narrator values his education. His education first brings him a calfskin briefcase, when the superintendent rewards him for his success, saying "Take this prize and keep it well. Consider it a badge of office. Prize it. Keep developing as you are and some day it will be filled with important papers that will help shape the destiny of your people." The narrator treasures the briefcase so much because it symbolizes his education. He carries it throughout the whole novel, and it is the only object he takes into the cellar fro... ...ture and History. 1996 ed. Kelly, Robin D.G. "Communist Party of the United States." Encyclopaedia of African-American   Culture and History. 1996 ed.      Internet Sources: Bellow, Saul. "Man Underground" Review of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Commentary. June 1952. 1st December 1999<http://www.english.upeen.edu/~afilreis /50s/bellow-on-ellison.html Earl, Gerald. "Decoding Ralph Ellison" Essay obtained from IGC.org Summer '97. 30 November. <http://www.igc.org/dissent/archive/summer97/early.html Howe, Irving. "Black Boys and Native Sons" English Dept. at Univ. Penn. 1 December 1999 <http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/howe-blackboys.html. Howe, Irving. "Review of: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man" Pub. The Nation. 10 May 1952. 30 November 1999. <http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/howe-on-ellison.html.   

My Biography Essay

E-MAIL ADDRESS: veronguti@yahoo. com To whom it may concern, Dear Sir/ Madam, I am a University of Nairobi graduate, born, raised and schooled in Kenya. I have worked In 2 NGOs in the last 3 years. (The first was as a volunteer in the ICL ABC Project Abstinence, Being Faithful and Condom as a Peer Education Supervisor). This has been with adolescents, fellow youth in institutions of higher learning and urban slums (Dandora and Mathare). As a result I have acquired modest but valuable skills on project management (Monitoring and Evaluation). I am creative, innovative and eachable. I am familiar with the BCC model and development of ‘EC materials. I am available to start right away. I worked with I Choose life Africa, a leading NGO involved in Peer Education as a project officer in the High School Project and as a result I worked with the Ministry Of Education in Carrying out a survey (on Sexual reproductive Health) with the aim of enriching the high School Curriculum among other duties. As a student I volunteered for over two years with ICL in organizing and supervising Behavior change interventions at the University of Nairobi. I gained experience in working with adult and youth behavior change methodologies and their application to HIV/AIDS. I have conducted numerous trainings on Life Skills in peer education. I was also in charge of the Leadership and governance project which I helped design. In this project, the peer educators we train give back to their communities by training their fellow youth, carrying out outreach and thematic events. Last year, I helped the students prepare a memorandum to the Committee of Experts on constitutional affairs. This was given to Mr. Bobby Mkangi during one of our leadership and governance forums. I was part of the team that developed a website dubbed ‘Chuo’ which is aimed at connecting youth to various opportunities and information provision. I belonged to the Customer perspective and proposals teams. I have acquired skills in project design, implementation and Monitoring and evaluation. Working with you will be very beneficial to me. This will be a new challenge and a great opportunity for me to learn, share, input and grow. Looking forward to working with you. Yours faithfully,

Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass Essay

Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass When comparing two essays, there are many different aspects that the reader can look at to make judgments and opinions. In the two essays that I choose, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. Letter from Birmingham Jail, and FREDERICK DOUGLASS From Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, there were many similarities, but also many differences. Some of them being, the context, style, structure and tone. Many times when readings or articles are being compared, people over look the grammatical and structural elements, and just concentrate on the issues at hand. I believe it is important to evaluate both. Both readings are about African American Men who†¦show more content†¦That slaves and African Americans were treated inhumane and deserved the same rights as those of White Americans race did. Martin Luther King was born 1929 and lived to be 1968. While it was said that Frederick Douglass was said to be the first African American to become a National figure and to have influence with the government, Martin Luther Kings Jr. Was supposedly the most influential civil rights leader in America for a period of more than fifteen years (179). Martin Luther Kings did demonstrations and sit ins hoping to rise opportunities for African Americans. He would try to change the laws prohibiting African Americans from sitting on the buses or using certain water fountains. In the letter, Mr. King is writing in response to a criticism that he received. He is writing about why he is jail, which is due to the fact that he was in a sit in and was arrested with other members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The essay hits many of the points about sit ins and whether or not people believe his way is the right way to solve problems such as these. Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass both were African Americans who were faced with the facts of slavery and the injustice of it all. The difference between the two of them is the fact that one of them and the power and ?freedom? to go out and do something about what they believe is the right way. Mr. Douglass hadShow MoreRelatedKing And Douglass Similarities723 Words   |  3 PagesHave you ever heard of the speech â€Å"I Have a Dream† from the late Martin Luther King Jr.? You’d be pretty sure many people have heard of it, but has anyone ever really read it and thought about it? This could be like â€Å"The Hypocrisy of American Slavery,† a piece of work produced by Frederick Douglass. â€Å"They both argued that African-Americans have a natural right to equality† (Renfro 1). Douglass once said, â€Å"The white mans happiness cannot be purchased by the black mans misery.† Here is just anotherRead MoreAnder to Remorse in the Excerpt, Learning to Read by Malcolm X541 Words   |  2 Pagesfor one particular person or group. Malcolm X wants to inform and persuade an individual who is not aware of what he has discovered. He wanted others to know of the information he discovered of the horror the slaves endured. â€Å"Books like the one by Frederick Olmstead opened my eyes to the horrors suffered when the slave was landed in the United States.†(Malcolm X). He not only had proof to share but had multiple references to provi de clarity and proof. Malcolm X wrote his piece by starting in the presentRead MoreMartin Luther King, Obama, and Douglass Essay1785 Words   |  8 Pagespresent, and the future Countless have said that all men were created equal, but what about the prodigious black men of all time. Were King, Douglass, and Obama all created equal, or were these men chosen to be predestined for greatness? What constitutes greatness in politics? Names that come readily to mind, like Martin Luther King, Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Barack Obama, are those who rose to inspire their countries in times of turmoil and change; so it seems that circumstances are justRead MoreSlavery within the Eyes of Frederick Douglass Essay1026 Words   |  5 PagesWhat would it be like if we were a part of the slave years? To get an inside look of slavery we look through the eyes of a former slave Frederick Douglass. Through his experience of being grown into slavery in the south made him re-evaluate his life knowing he was worth more than being treated as someone else’s property. Not only was Douglass a part of the plantation system, city life, and brutal whipping but he was put into hi story as a great role model defining the true meaning of life. All peopleRead MoreThe Life Of Frederick Douglass And Olaudah Equiano1398 Words   |  6 Pagesgive people a way to see life through their eyes. Frederick Douglass and Olaudah Equiano were two slaves during those times that were forced into the world of slavery. Frederick Douglass’s â€Å"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave† and Olaudah Equiano’s â€Å"The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano† are literary pieces that talk about their views, experiences, and ideas in relation to slavery. The narratives of Douglass and Equiano offer true records of life as a slaveRead MoreFrederick Douglass Research Paper1165 Words   |  5 PagesUnit VII: Frederick Douglass Relevance in the 21st Century Born into a life of slavery, Frederick Douglass overcame a boatload of obstacles in his very accomplished life. While a slave he was able to learn how to read and write, which was the most significant accomplishment in his life. This was significant, not only because it was forbidden for a slave to read due to the slaveholders wanting to keep them ignorant to preserve slavery, but because it was the starting point for Frederick to think moreRead MoreThe Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass1527 Words   |  7 PagesAfrican talents were absolutely wasted and they were considered inferior to white individuals. The â€Å"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass† simply addresses that white society was causing negative effects to itself and that slavery must be abolished in order to shape a better world. The depicted brutality narrated in Frederick Douglass’s autobiography starts when Douglass states that his former overseer, Mr. Plummer, â€Å"cuts and slashes the women’s heads so horribly, that even master would be enragedRead MoreHeroes Are Not A Hero992 Words   |  4 Pagesof the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass). Frederick Douglass was a runaway slave who went from the South to the North. If he accidentally revealed that he had been a slave, he could be sent back to the South to endure hardships and punishment. He could have chosen to stay quiet and pretend to agree with everyone else, but he did not. He spoke out against the popular belief trying to assist his fellow people. In the same respect, Martin Luther King Jr. is consideredRead More Death and the African American Literature2497 Words   |  10 Pagespoignant because of the loyalty that African American writers have to their history. With the help of works of Frederi ck Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave , Negro spirituals (â€Å"I feel like my time ain’t long† and â€Å"Many Thousands Gone†) and Abel Meeropol’s â€Å"Strange Fruits,† modern African American literature like late sermons from Martine Luther King Jr. and Elizabeth Alexander’s â€Å" Praise Song for the Day† has utilize the universal theme of death to symbolize theRead MoreWhat Do You Picture A Hero?1075 Words   |  5 Pagesspeaking to white people weighed me down. I spoke,... when I felt a degree of freedom,... I have been engaged in pleading the cause of my brethren-...† (Springboard Book, pages 71-72, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass). Frederick Douglass was a runaway slave who went from the South to the North. If he revealed that he had been a slave, he would be delivered back to the South to endure hardships and punishme nt as a slave. He could have chosen to