“To Kill a Mockingbird” has mostly been banned for three reasons:

 

The portrayal of racisms and racists

Many southerners felt that at the time, “To Kill a Mockingbird:” unfairly portrayed all white southerners as racists. Because of this, they wanted the book to be banned in order to protect their image of themselves and the south. However, the novel’s purpose was to expose the hidden and not so hidden prejudices and the discrimination that took place in the south during the early to mid 20th century. The novel did just that, and white southerners felt threatened by this exposure.

 

2) The derogatory, obscene, and offensive language used throughout the novel.

Parents and school boards decided to ban the novel on account of the use of racial slurs, epithets, and other obscene words. The parents felt that they did not want their children exposed to such language while in middle school or even high school.

 

3) The description of an alleged rape

Parents who wished to shield their children from reading about sex and rapes were outraged when they discovered that “To Kill a Mockingbird” does in fact contain a rape that turns out to be consensual sex. Upon this discovery, the novel was called a “filthy, trashy, sex novel” by some in New York. Those who chose to ban it for this reason, did not see the important moral issues that the novel was actually about.

 

“Filthy, trashy, sex novel”     

 

“Immoral literature”

 

“Improper for our children to read”                     

Email: jawalker@saintursula.org

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