Banned Book-City of Thieves
The main role of most literary works other than educating and creating awareness is entertaining. While the author must develop interesting themes in their works to facilitate the two roles, it is also important that they are considerate of the moral implications of the text. It is for this reason that regulatory bodies have been established by most jurisdictions to filter the content in a fashion that can be consumed by the target audience. Several texts in history have been banned, as a result, due to the author’s incorporation of sensitive themes such as obscenity and racism. This paper explores the themes developed in the City of Thieves in an attempt to identify the positives in the book while also focusing on the negatives that resulted in its banning.
City of Thieves can be described as a historical novel written by David Benioff and published in 2008. The plot of the novel revolves around two youths Lev and Kolya who meet in prison after the former arrested for looting the dead body of a Luftwaffe captain. The two after getting summoned by Colonel Grechko are given the option of obtaining twelve eggs for Grechko’s daughter’s wedding or get executed. During their search for the eggs, they come across cannibals and a child selling candy made from the book’s bindings (Benioff 45). They depart the city and head behind the enemies line where they meet a group of four women who are made to stay with the German soldiers so that they are raped. To obtain the eggs, Lev must play a game of chess against Einsatzgruppen commander. After winning the game, Lev is involved in a scuffle with the commander whom he ends up killing with a knife hidden in his boot (Benioff 69). Kolya and Vika, a female sniper, kill the remaining guards as they escape with the highly coveted eggs. As Kolya and Lev near Leningrad, the former is short by a soviet soldier after which he bleeds to death.
David Benioff’s City of Thieves was banned following a claim by one of the parent s ion Lee County High School that the book is vulgar. While the book might have been banned because of the themes in it, it has several strengths as a literary work that can be described as adequate to lift the ban. One of the strengths of the book was the author’s use of relatable social characters with qualities enough to impact their audience positively. The characters of the book, for example, can be described as idealists despite the tragedies characterized inn their lives. Benioff, for example, develops a strong, resilient underdog in the protagonist, Levi. According to the author, Lev has the “pessimism of Jews and Russians” and has seen more by seventeen years than most people have in their lifetime. The tragedies that Levi has faced throughout his life appear in the narrative as his strengths as he relentlessly manages to survive in a war-starved town. Like Lev, Kolya also has a strong and admirable character in his capacity to rise above the tragedies in his life. Characters are an integral part of the educative and entertaining role of any literary work or film as through their qualities can positively or negatively influence the audience especially in a high school context when most of the audience is young and gullible.
Another reason the book should not be banned other than its inspirational is its educative role. The book is rich in various educative social themes such as growing, sexuality, and Russia and World War II. The plot of the book follows the course of typical coming of age novel with the protagonist’s path of growth taking place over a period of one week. At the beginning of the novel, for example, Lev appears as a naïve and rebellious adolescent with a dream of being a war hero. After going through a series of tragedies and unfortunate events, Lev is forced to confront his fears, and this defines his transition from naivety to maturity. He is forced by circumstances to play chess and physical fighting to defeat the Abendroth, and from this, he gains fulfilment over and above the admiration of Vika (Benioff 150). As an educative tool, therefore, the book was better placed to teach a high school audience of the strengths a person can obtain by overcoming the various obstacles in their lives.
The book, through its account of the Second World War, takes a student through a history lesson in 1941 when Hilter’s invasion of the Soviet Union resulted in the war on the Eastern front. The Soviet army was underprepared to defend against the German invasion with the latter successfully surrounding Lenigrand. The novel provides a clear picture of the events of the context of the war from the Red Army soldier, the NKVD, to the Lenigrands citizens. Another educative social theme developed in the novel is sexuality, where an integral part of the development of Lev is being confronted by what sex is and his sexual naiveté being challenged. This theme is appropriate for a high school audience which consists of adolescents who are actively discovering their sexuality and other aspects about themselves. While the theme of sexuality can be a sensitive matter to address especially for a young audience, it is important that the issue is familiarized to them through such strategies as books where it is introduced to them more indirectly and integrated with a life lesson.
While the boom is characterized by several life lessons and educative social themes, one weakness that played a significant role in its prohibition is the promotion of negative gender perspectives. Sex in the novel is brought out as a way through which the male characters how their power and masculinity. Through “calculated neglect,” Kolya is able to successfully manipulate women into sleeping with him. Kolya also refers to his previous partners as conquests placing himself in a dominant position of the female gender and thus promoting what can be described as a sense of misogyny (Benioff 140). Abendroth, on the other hand, also promotes misogyny by using sexual domination of females as a way to show his rank and. He also demonstrates his military prowess by holding captive adolescent sex slaves.
In conclusion, Benioff’s City of Thieves, like most other literary works, effectively assumes its role as the mirror of society. Through this mirror, the society is able to confront its weaknesses and develop strategies to mitigate them. The social themes developed in the novel, such as sexuality and adolescent development, are profound social lessons, especially for a high school audience that is still active in growth and development to adulthood. The paper in targeting a young audience could have presented some of these themes in a subtle or diluted form that could still create dialogue without possessing the potential risk for negative influence.
References
Benioff, David. City of Thieves: A Novel. Penguin, 2008.