Fahernheit 451

To Burn or Not To Burn

According to the Webster Dictionary censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media. It’s a controversial subject, and with every controversial subject there are strong opinions that go with it. In both the novel, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury and the short story, The Paterson Public Library, by Judith Ortiz Cofer censorship is important to the authors and the characters in their stories. Whether for or against, both stories have an opinion of censorship within them.
In The Paterson Public Library, a short story by Judith Ortiz Cofer, the author is the main character. She tells a story of how she was bullied excessively, but books were her escape from it all. “My love for books was strong enough to propel me down the dreary streets with their slush covered sidewalks and the stormy trees of winter looking like dark figures from a distance: angry black curls wanting to attack me.” (Library, 1)   She lived in a poor neighborhood that had threats at every corner, but she didn’t have books at home. She had such a passion for books that it could give her the courage to go out and face the harmful environment, despite the bullies that threatened and attacked her. She read a lot, and her taste definitely was not specific. “Here I discovered that there is a Cinderella in every culture, that she didn’t necessarily have the white skin and rosy cheeks Walt Disney had given her, and that the prince they all waited for could appear in any color, shape or form. The Prince didn’t even have to be a man.” (Library, 2) These stories got her through her oppressive childhood and with censorship who knows how she would have dealt with her pain. Judith Ortiz Cofer is definitely against censorship, she is very passionate about reading books and spreading her love of them with others.   Judith wouldn’t be able to do that with...