The author of Blu’s Hanging had an interesting past that greatly reflected her piece. Her writing style is blunt and at some points uncomfortable because of the explicit dialogue and explanations throughout the novel. Yamanaka has won many awards for her novel and her studies and her experiences helped a novel with great depth and controversy over it’s subject matter. Writing and all other art forms should not be censored in any way because it could take away from the ultimate meaning of the piece. If an individual is mature enough to read the material, analyze it, and get their own personally meaning on it, the “controversial” subjects should not be a problem.
There has been a lot of media attention to books taking out racial slurs in order to keep the context clean and “appropriate” for everyone; recent examples include the novel of Huckleberry Finn . This takes away from the ultimate message. There is a lot of negative, disgusting, and disturbing information, pictures and all other outlets that are easy to see; just simply changing a word does not fix the ultimate concern. Freedom of speech is an extremely important privilege America has, and this falls exactly into this category.
I agree that censorship takes away from the ultimate meaning of a literary work. The context of the situations is dulled or not justified when comments are taken out.
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