Banned Book-Of-The-Day: Of Mice And Men

Reasons for Censorship: Offensive language, racism, violence

"As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.”

John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is extremely popular among book-banning individuals. Of Mice and Men is often regarded as one of the most potent and disturbing novels of the last few decades. Despite the darkness of the book, George and Lennie’s story demonstrates to readers the constant tug-of-war between sentiment and mortality. Steinbeck uses violence in the novel to further prove this point. The violent nature of one scene in particular (I won’t spoil it!) is the foremost reason why people try so desperately hard to censor the book. The scene is perhaps one of the most deeply heartbreaking in all of literature, and while it is quite painful to read, it speaks loudly about the danger of keeping a person ignorant, even if one believes that person to be too immature to handle reality. In other words, it is an immensely important scene. Racism is also an underlying theme in Of Mice and Men. The novel is set sometime after the Great Depression, right around the time of the swell of the civil rights movement. So, naturally, the book contains racist characters. Steinbeck did not condone racism—that is stated blatantly throughout the novel. Just as with To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men is banned because it is an accurate description of America in the era of segregation. Dozens of books that contain racism are banned, in fact, because many people nowadays do not want to think about that horrendous period in history. It is important to think about, however. One of the reasons that children are taught history in school is to prevent the terrible events of the past from happening in the future. If we don’t think about a period in time because it hurts, we are dooming ourselves to relive it.

Of Mice and Men was a literary advocate for the rights of African Americans when it was published—it should not be banned! Banned Books Weeks gives people the opportunity to speak out against book censorship. Support the liberation of books like Of Mice and Men!

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