Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five Should Not Be Banned in High School Levels

The banned book of “Slaughterhouse-Five” by: Kurt Vonnegut is a very interesting piece of work. The story revolves around Billy Pilgrim, a soldier in World War Two who does not even want to be there. This book follows him in a nonlinear order and rather sporadic change of events from Billy becoming a prisoner of war and the bombing at Dresden and how he survives. Billy has flashbacks and goes through time travel being “unstuck in Lime“ where he lives his past, future and fake events such as being abducted by aliens.

The book was banned in several places including all public schools of Oakland County, Michigan as well as Missouri State University. The American Library Association listed the book as the 46th most banned or challenged book of the first decade of the let century.

The main reasons for banning the book were foul language, sexual content, and being flat-out offensive. While I agree this book does contain all that and more, I believe it is all properly used to boost the meaning and overall feel of the book I do believe this book should be banned to younger audiences due to a large amount of profanity, violence and sexual content.

This book was banned in Oakland County, Michigan to all public schools in 1972. It was ruled that the book was “depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar, and anti-Christian,” The book was also banned in Rochester, Michigan, Levittown, New York, and several other places for its language, sexual content, and violence. The most recent banning of the book was in 2011 from Republic, Missouri high schools.

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This was mainly over the language and sexual content which it was voted 4-0 to be removed from the high school curriculum and all of its libraries.

The controversial elements of this book do add to the overall theme The offensive language is represented of the time and scenario the author is describing. In World War Two the soldiers did use profanity and did make references to what would be considered immoral. The sexual content adds to the story and shows how the protagonist acts outside the war and brings light to the type of person he is From the language he hears from being a prisoner of war to the porn star he meets on “Tralfamadore” the planet he is taken to when he is abducted by aliens, all serves a purpose bringing the story together. Especially with the book being written out of order and all of the random changes Billy has no control over going through flashbacks and time travel, much of this background information is needed to really paint a picture of what is happening.

I believe the book should be banned to younger audiences I believe the book correctly uses all of the explicit content to aid the book, however it should only be for mature audiences. This book would be acceptable to ban in anything lower than a high school level. The college level should definitely have access to this book as the mature content does not detract from the overall meaning. The foul language in the book adds to the realism of war and correctly describes the events, especially knowing the author did go through this real bombing as a prisoner of war and survived. The sexual content also adds to the backstory of the protagonist where we learn much more about him and his lifestyle. While the content is mature and I agree with it being too much for younger audiences, “Slaughterhouse-Five“ should not be banned in the high school level and above.