Last week the parent of a Sherwood High School student decided his child was neither mature nor smart enough to cope with the violence in the John Gardner novel Grendel. The book has been part of the curriculum in this English honors course for years. This year the administration decided to give a heads up to parents by sending home permission slips making sure that parents approved of the literature.
A monstrous outcry
Last week the parent of a Sherwood High School student decided his child was neither mature nor smart enough to cope with the violence in the John Gardner novel Grendel. The book has been part of the curriculum in this English honors course for years. This year the administration decided to give a heads up to parents by sending home permission slips making sure that parents approved of the literature.
The vast majority of students, 70 out of 74, had their permission slips signed, allowing them to read the material in class. Mike Grubbe, one of the objectors, took it upon himself to attempt to override the decisions of the 140 or so other parents and get the book removed from the curriculum for good.
Grubbe believes the novel to be too violent and inappropriate for high school sophomores–we’re talking about 15 and 16-year olds in an accelerated English course. He even cites the most graphic and disturbing scene of the novel in which “the monster tortures and mutilates a female.”
For those who are not familiar with the novel, it is essentially the story of Beowulf from the perspective of the monster Grendel. It is a novel about the monster’s struggle with murder and good versus evil. So is the novel violent? Yes. But is it gratuitous? I would argue that it is not.
Teenagers in general, and I am sure the denizens of Sherwood are no exception, are exposed to gratuitous violence on a daily basis in news, film and television. Anyone old enough to view a PG-13 movie is old enough to read, and deal with, Grendel.
Grubbe also seems to ignore the fact that 70 other permission slips were signed, allowing the students to read the book. This man, who resides in the minority on this issue, still feels it necessary to enact his will over the majority. Grubbe seems to think that his point of view did not die along with book burnings and mindless censorship.
Marlo Grubbe, Mike’s wife, feels that violence in print is a primary contributor to real-life violence. She even went so far as to list the names of infamous school shootings and their participants, as well as adding, “There are a lot of people here with their eyes on you.”
Clearly she believes that fear mongering is the proper way to solve this issue.
Why not ban Lord of the Flies or A Modest Proposal, or the hundreds of other books that delve into and analyze the complexity of human nature? Surely the suggestion of eating children is as irreparably harmful to the 15-year-old psyche as a fictitious monster.
High-school courses, especially at the honors level, should be preparing students for college, not sheltering them against violence and the real world. Rapes and murders happen every day, and news stations seem to have no compunction about running those stories, often with photos and video for added effect.
What one doesn’t get with a news story is perspective, narrative or dialogue. Literary violence can be educational and illuminating. It has far less impact, in a negative context, than stories on the five o’clock news that only foster fear without giving the necessary perspective.
Censorship and fear mongering are not the answer. We need to support education, especially through literature in all of its forms, even when the literature is based on violence.
