Many people today tend to believe that they can declare their superiority over other individuals, for example by burning their books, which to their mind are considered to be offensive. Vonnegut has written a powerful letter to the chairman of the Drake School Board, Mr. McCarthy, concerning his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, which was used as a teaching aid by a school teacher, in order to get acquainted students with the brutality of World War II, but later on all the copies of the book were burnt in the furnace of the school.
When it comes to the topic of “real life”, most of us would readily agree that books which have an offensive language can have a bad influence on child’s consciousness. Whereas many parents are convinced that children should be exposed to all sorts of information in order to have enough knowledge and be ready to confront with future life struggles. Others, even maintain that the sooner the children understand and realize how cruel this world is, the better for them. The author has emphasized his dissatisfaction to McCarthy, the chairman of the Drake School with the following words: “I gather from what I read in the papers and hear on television that you imagine me, and some other writers, too, as being sort of ratlike people who enjoy making money from poisoning the minds of young people” (Vonnegut,496) . Basically,the author has tried to argue that some of his characters language is coarsely, but even children understand that the real life is not all about kindness and loyalty, and that is simply how the real life looks.
All things considered, Vonnegut is right that children should be aware of possible life struggles and to be able to stand for themselves, even if they find these life examples in books and learn a lesson from them. In addition, if the chairman of the school makes some decisions,whether to use or not someone's books , he should be at least a civilized human and take responsibility for his actions. Mr.McCarthy’s deed was hundred times worse than a reading of a novel about war,with some offensive language.
Works cited
White, Fred D. and Billings Simone J. The Well-Crafted Argument. Boston: Cengage Learning ,
2013. Print.
