1984 Must Read Book

Thesis: The novel 1984, by George Orwell, must be read because it tells a story about an over-controlling government, shows the negative consequences of censorship and how people’s privacy can be invaded in a way that takes away their rights and freedom to live as they want to because it fills them with fear of what will happen if they cross the government. By telling this story, George Orwell is trying to warn people of what happens when they let someone control too much of their lives; this invaluable message is why this book must be read.

The novel 1984, by George Orwell, must be read because it tells a story about an over-controlling government, warning people of its dangers.  That is to say that in this context, the government controls almost everything and when they cannot control something they completely destroy it and even all memory of it. When someone thinks against the Party (the name of the government regime in 1984) they are committing a crime, and anything that gives the slightest impression that they might have committed a so call ‘thought crime’ can and will be taken as all the evidence to arrest and most likely execute the perpetrator. The main character in the book, Winston, has a diary. While he is writing in it against the party and particularly their leader, Big Brother, he gets very scared that he might be found out. He soon however, realizes that “Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference…The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed-would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper-the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thought crime thy called it.” (Orwell 19). He knows that the crime is already committed and that he is doomed “whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or refrained from it.” This ‘thought crime’ is an example of the over-control of the Party; it is a symbol of the absolute control, even a person’s thoughts belong to the Party.  The Party believes that they can stop any opposition before it is even a real threat. The Party’s overassertive power is scary and such power must never be given to any person group or anyone else. This must be conveyed for when a person gives this power they do not think they are giving someone total control of them but rather that they are putting their trust in them, as the society of the book who blindly gives Big Brother and the Party complete and utter control of themselves.  Therefore to not read this book or to prevent it from being read would take that warning out of the world and its own ‘Big Brothers.’ People always need to know to shout “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” when such a power tries to rise up.

Looking for Alaska: Challenged

Thesis: The novel, Looking for Alaska, by John Green, should be challenged because it glorifies smoking, it uses numerous sexual innuendoes, but the perplexing, controversial ideas about death and afterlife open the eyes of struggling teenagers.

Looking for Alaska highlights puzzling, controversial thoughts that help struggling teenagers in coping with death. After Alaska’s death, Pudge struggles with the thought that Alaska kills herself, knowing there were unfinished matters between the two of them. As a result of these unfinished matters, Pudge convinces himself that,  “[He] still [thinks] that, sometimes, [thinks] that maybe ‘the afterlife’ is just something [people] made up to ease the pain of loss, to make [their] time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe [Alaska] was just matter, and matter gets recycled” (Green 220). Miles finds it difficult to reason why Alaska kills herself knowing that she was leaving behind friends who adored and cared deeply for her. In fact, for a short time after her death, he was also angry that she dies. Miles is angry that he never got to finish kissing her or find out how she feels about him. To cope with the idea that Alaska kills herself, Miles tells himself that there is not an afterlife, and that it is “made up”. This thought allows him to separate himself from Alaska’s death. He thinks that maybe if the “afterlife” does not exist, then he does not have to worry about whether or not Alaska’s spirit or soul, are in a good place. Miles speaks down to those who believe in an afterlife. In his mind, an afterlife is created to “ease the pain of loss”. Actually, he does this to help him move on and push the painful thoughts of his friend’s death out of his mind. Miles begins to call Alaska “matter”. While referring to the girl he loves, through struggles, differences, and difficulties, downplays how he feels about Alaska in order to move on with his life. Teens find difficulty in letting go of someone they love. Young adults should not know what it is like to lose a friend. Death is something that is difficult to cope with, and even adults struggle in doing so. Miles goes on to add that matter gets “recycled”. This is a beautiful way to think about death. If Alaska is recycled, then she is reused, salvaged, reclaimed or recovered. This is a more positive way to think about love and loss. Not only is this helpful for teenagers struggling with the idea of death and what follows, but adults as well.

Catch-22, A Challenged Book

“Catch-22”, by Joseph Heller, should be a challenged book because it uses sexual explicitness and graphic violence, but discusses the controversial topic of war to draw readers out of their comfort zone. The sexual explicitness is shown when Yossarian meets with his whore while on shore leave, the violence becomes too graphic while the death of Snowden is being retold, and the topic of war pushes readers out of their comfort zone when the narrator describes the condition of the war outside of Pianosa.

“Catch-22” should be challenged because it very graphically describes Snowden’s mortal injury, showing extreme violence. Late in the novel, after several instances of extreme violence, the graphicness comes to a climax. Yossarian is in the hospital and has a flashback to the death of Snowden. Yossarian tries to help Snowden when he notices that “Snowden was wounded inside his flak suit. Yossarian ripped open the snaps of Snowden’s flak suit and felt himself scream wildly as Snowden’s insides slithered down to the floor in a soggy pile and just kept dripping out. A chunk of flak more than three inches big had shot into his other side just underneath the arm and blasted all the way through, drawing whole mottled quarts of Snowden along with it through the gigantic hole in his ribs it made as it blasted out” (Heller, 439). Heller’s novel hits the peak of graphic violence late in the book as “a chunk of flak three inches big” shoots into Yossarian’s airplane and into Snowden, ripping a “gigantic hole in his ribs” and in doing so “drawing whole mottled quarts of Snowden along with it”, painting the awful picture of a very real injury during World War II and dealing death so violently to a fictitious human being. The picture gets worse for Snowden as his “insides slithered down to the floor”, creating an awful image. The passage continues on, becoming unnecessarily violent as details “just kept dribbling out” along with Snowden’s insides. The nasty picture was described by a third person view of Yossarian, the man helping to treat Snowden’s injury in the plane. The graphic violence becomes personal by describing that Yossarian “felt himself scream wildly” when he saw the injury, putting a personal touch on seeing the picture from a reader’s view. That single passage takes the horrible injury and the rest of the novel to a degree of graphicness unfit to be read without discussion.