The Handmaid's Tale
Today’s censorship highlight comes from an AP English class in 2015. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic and her dystopian look at the dangers of Christian fundamentalism often brings controversy. I had assumed that the successful Hulu series would trigger more attention but so far there does not seem to be any significant uptick in challenges publicly. One parent objected strongly to the use of The Handmaid’s Tale in their child’s class, seeking to have it removed.
As always, the depiction of sex is a problem: “This book is pornographic, violent, dark, and disturbing.” Book challengers frequently describe anything that depicts sex as the equivalent of pornography. This challenge suggests that the pornography is inherently sexist. The challenger can only conceive of a literal interpretation of the text: it depicts women being abused and used for male power and, thus, the book endorses such abuse. The possibility that such depiction could be interpreted as a cautionary tale is not considered because interpretation of literature is unnecessary, it means what it says. They also complained of “[c]opious use of multiple profane, crude, and vulgar terms” and that it depicts suicide and violence. The danger of such material is great because “[p]ornography is damaging whether presented through images or words and has no place in high school.”
The school, therefore, is turned into an agent of child abuse. The exposure to pornography risks not only damage to the innocent and pure minds of children, it risks grave harm to a vulnerable population because some students in the class would likely have experienced sexual violence. Did the challenger actually read the book? No. But they did “read several summaries from online sites” and requested a retired teacher and librarian read it (that person concluded the value was minimal in comparison to the extreme sexual content). The biggest concern, supposedly, was less the content than the process.
This could be a reasonable point. When teachers use “controversial” literature they routinely provide notification and a method to opt-out and choose an alternative book so that sensitive parents and children can avoid information they don’t like. To not do so here certainly seems odd. It turns out, however, that it was a complete lie. As the review committee noted, a syllabus was provided to all students with all of the readings listed. Additionally, at the beginning of the year parent meeting, which the challenger attended, the teacher went over the books assigned. Another parent, who objected strongly to any review of Handmaid’s Tale, stressed the challenger was there and made no objection. In addition to all of this, the teacher went over The Handmaid’s Tale in detail with the classes and discussed the alternative novel, Jane Eyre. While 71 students chose to read The Handmaid’s Tale, 9 chose the alternative … including the challenger’s son.
So contrary to the narrative the challenger put forward of a reckless school bent on harming children, it turns out the school did everything correctly and that the challenger’s child opted-out. As one committee member noted, while “it is a parent’s right to protect their child from what they may deem offensive, … it is not their right to keep others from the opportunity to read a critically-acclaimed book and to discuss difficult topics with their parents, teachers, and peers.” As I’ve written before challengers often seek to exclude literature or other material out of a paternalistic desire to help other parents be better. This challenger already ensured that their child would not read the book but, to their amazement, others would make a different choice and that can’t be allowed. The school refused to facilitate this desire and retained the book noting that when read in its entirety, rather than via selective excerpts, the book is more than worthy of AP English standards and that it was in fact a common text. While the book was certainly disturbing, as most dystopian novels are, it was “not in any way erotic.”
In my experience AP texts generally have an easier time because the class itself is intended to parallel a college level course and thus the attempt to cast assignments as corrupting minors is more difficult. In fact, one parent objected strongly to the “committee that was convened to review the secret complaint. That manner of proceeding is reminiscent of the Star Chamber of the Tudor times.” That parent implied that if the “secret proceeding” resulted in removal of the book a lawsuit might ensue because it diminished their own child’s education to serve the complaints of one malcontent. Perhaps surprisingly to the challenger, many parents did not seem to want their help after all.
