The Banning Of Stephen King's The Dead Zone

The Dead Zone Stephen King’s The Dead Zone has been a bestseller, but it has also been banned or challenged. The Dead Zone is about an average man named John Smith. Things were going great for him, until he was in a car accident, which caused him to go into a coma for five and a half years. After he came out of the coma, he gained the ability to see the future. Throughout the book, you see John trying to regain what he once had. All of Stephen King’s books have received outstanding critical acclaim. Several of his books have even won the World Fantasy Award (Marwick). The Dead Zone should not be banned at the High School and Mid-High levels. Some reasons that the book has been challenged are language, violence, and explicit sexual
Words and phrases such as, “…a bitchy career woman” (King 20), and, “…a kooch joint” (King 28). The words are used to portray a character in a movie John was watching, and a stripper bar that he passes. He also uses words and phrases, like, “You’re no fucking good” (King 9), and “Now the shit has truly hit the fan” (King 235). This shows how a father treated his son, which turned him into a monster. It also shows the reality of a situation in the novel. Some people may find this language crude and offensive, while many others find that it adds color and interest to the novel. In the novel, King uses strong, graphic violence to show the sides of some characters that some other characters don’t see. He also uses it to give background into some character’s lives. King uses this to show how crazy some characters are, or what other characters don’t know about. A salesman named Greg Stillson, later to become a politician, kicks a dog to death in Iowa: Greg Stillson chased it across the dusty farmyard, panting and shouting, sweat rolling down his cheeks, and kicked the dog until it was screaming and barely able to drag itself through the dust. It was bleeding in half a dozen places. It was dying. (King