Forbidden Reading
Forbidden Reading
In the excerpt Forbidden Reading, the topic of being suppressed by higher powers is extremely prominent. However, this is not the root of the problems in a given society as suppression is not one of the basic human instincts. Forbidden Reading exposes the brutality one can find in all societies, regardless of what form it chooses to take. This paper will address one of the most dominant impulses of the human species and of almost all the other species on Earth who are able to have more than basic thought processes. It will begin by addressing what it believes as one of the most dominant impulses, why it is, how it came to be, and why it overshadows so much of any given society.
Curiosity killed the cat. Unfortunately, it is one of the prevailing compulsions lying in one’s body at any given time. Curiosity is something that resides in everyone regardless of one’s beliefs or upbringing. For example, in Forbidden Reading, p.286, it describes Comstock, one who despised all books that “destroy[ed]…the country,” was still taken over by curiosity despite the disgust and made him “dip… into the books before destroying them…” Curiosity’s unquenchability grows until it is impossible to suppress regardless of the dangers it brings one’s physical being into, for example, one often is often “forced to find devious methods of learning” (p.280) or otherwise quench curiosity. These ‘devious’ methods included, for former slaves, encouraging their master’s son through “suggesting that the boy read part of his lesson aloud” and causing the young master to believe that “[they were] …admiring his performance.” Curiosity often lays dormant, until a single action or phrase can spark it into life as it did for this young former slave, “The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the Bible aloud…. awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused in me this desire to...
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