The Outsiders Should Be Banned Essay

The Outsiders
By: Alyssa Padewski Do you want your kids to have bad influences from this book? Do you want them to be exposed to this material? The book, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton should be banned from this school for teaching kids bad lessons and it is inappropriate. First of all, there is under aged smoking. As well as young kids drinking alcohol. Second of all, there is a lot of violence and fighting, plus there are weapons being used in a bad way. They show people killing people or they might just get hurt. Censorship is the ability to limit any activities, ideas, or actions of any person or group of people at all or at any moment. A challenged book is an attempt to remove inappropriate material due to someone or some groups views. A banned
book is a book where they actually remove the inappropriate material or the book. People challenge or ban books because of sexually explicit content, offensive language and the factor of being unsuited to age groups. The people who would challenge or ban books are parents, teachers, or any people who think the book is unsuitable for their kids or in general. There are under aged kids who smoke cigarettes and do bad things like get drunk. On page 14 the quote read “I was plannin’ on getting boozed up tomorrow night.” Two-bit is the speaker for this quote. It means that he wanted to drink and get drunk. This is proof that this is an inappropriate book to read for young children. It shows that under aged kids are get drunk. It lets kids know that when you are young it is okay to drink but what they don’t know is that it damages your body. Another quote that shows kids smoking is alright is on page 97. “Johnny had been smoking since he was nine; Steve started at eleven. So no one thought it unusual when I started.” Ponyboy thought this in his head when he was talking to Jerry at the hospital. It shows that they are smoking at an early age. This is bad because it is showing adolescents that smoking is alright but it actually causes cancer and premature death. There is a lot of fighting and death that occurs in this book and it sometimes involves weapons.
A quote that backs up my statement is on page 5 + 7 when t says, “A blade was held against my throat… The blade must have slipped while he was trying to shut me up.” Ponyboy was the one who thought this in his mind. He got pinned down by the Socs and he kept moving and wouldn’t stop talking. This quote shows that the Socs like to pick fights whenever they want to and it shows us that fighting is fun and are alright to do. It is a bad thing because it lets young kids read this and think that doing all of this is okay which it is not. Another quote from the book that makes it a possibility to be banned is on page 154. It reads “Dally raised the gun, and I thought: you blasted fool. They don’t know you’re bluffing. And even as the Policemen’s guns spit fire into the night I knew that was what Dally wanted.” This quote was thought in Ponyboy’s head when Dally got shot by the police and committed suicide just because he wanted to be with Johnny. It proves that there is death and suicide in this book. It is not a good thing because kids could get the wrong impression and think if something goes wrong they can commit
suicide. If people don’t follow what I chose than kids might be going around starting fights. Also they might start smoking at a young age or they might go out to drink and get drunk just to be cool. And if something happens to them in any way they could geo and commit suicide. Lastly if they get in a fight they might use a weapon and end up killing the person or hurting them really bad. Although in the book it shows how a family of three brothers stays together with no parents and it teaches kids to see the gold in life which means to the good in life I think the book should still be banned. There are lots of reasons not to ban the book but there are many more reasons that the book should. I could go on about how this book is inappropriate for schools to read. I think the book The Outsiders should be banned from the Lebanon Middle Schools.