Ella Minnow Pea: A Modern Dystopia

Susan E. Stokley

Adolescent Literature

University of Colorado-Denver

Table of Contents

Context…………………………………………………………………………………3

Introduction, Overview and Rationale…………………………………………………4

Explanation and Definition of Key Terms……………………………………………..7

Instructional Resources………………………………………………………………...8

Assessments …………………………………………………………………………...9

Sequence and Scope…………………………………………………………………..14

Appendix A…………………………………………………………………………...15

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………..22

Context

This unit will be taught in my 12th grade Advanced Placement Literature class. Our Advanced Placement program is an open-enrollment senior elective and includes students from both the honors and general education classes. The goal of Denver Public Schools in regards to Advanced Placement programs is to increase enrollment at all grade levels to ensure that students are prepared for the rigors of higher education. The students in this class reflect the diversity of the school. The demographic distribution at Thomas Jefferson High School is as follows: White—46%, Black—31%, Hispanic—19%, Asian/Pacific—3%, American Indian—1%. My AP Literature class has a slightly higher percentage of white students, and a lower percentage of Latino students. Because we are not the ELL magnet for the district, I have no ELL students in this class, but there is a wide range of socio-economic status in the classroom, so I strive to provide access to as many outside materials as possible for my students. There are students with IEP’s and 504’s in the class and I work closely with their case managers and parents to meet all of their needs. These needs usually require allowing extra time on tests and assignments, as well as providing class notes, and individual tutoring which I do in my writing lab three times a week. The Writing Lab takes place during lunch on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and is my personal contribution to RTI implementation in our school. Presently I have 57 students of various skill levels in this AP class, which makes for a lot of differentiation. In this unit, we will not only read our primary text, but students will read one independent dystopian novel, and a variety of ancillary text provided in class.

Introduction, Overview and Rationale

The primary text for this unit is Ella Minnow Pea, by Mark Dunn. It is a dystopian novel, which has some of the characteristics of the best young adult literature according to Donelson and Nilson, in their book, Literature for Today’s Young Adults. The most obvious characteristic present in this work is that the supervising adults leave Ella, our protagonist to her own devices very early on (Donelson, & Nilsen). Another characteristic defined by Donelson and Nilsen is that Ella deals with emotions important to young adults like developing a personal ideology and ethical standards. (Donelson, & Nilsen) This is how Ella grows throughout the course of the book. It is a dystopian novel, which is not the most popular genre for most YA readers, according to Donelson and Nilsen, because they “usually lack excitement and fast-moving plots.” (Donelson, & Nilsen). This is true of Ella Minnow Pea, but the situation, and Ella’s own dissatisfaction with the rules imposed by the council, is relevant to any young adult concerned for the greater good of society and humanity.
The theme of this unit is that freedom of communication is an essential component of a stable society. The unit will cover such topics as totalitarianism and government control, censorship, and freedom of speech. This theme, while appropriate for any age group with the ability to understand the implications, is especially relevant to our students as part of their role as citizens in society beyond the classroom. We will also spend time analyzing how the writer communicates his ideas within the parameters of his own self-imposed limitations. Finally, we will practice communicating our own ideas, using these limitations to understand the impact of censorship on the classroom community as a microcosm of society. Throughout the course of the unit, we will explore a variety of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and film with the intention of answering the following essential questions:
#1: How does language shape a society’s value system and beliefs?

This question focuses on the overall theme of the novel. As the council imposes more limitations on language use and communication, daily expression becomes more limited and there is less interaction among the islanders. They live in fear of using banned letters, and hence, cease communication in all but the more essential circumstances. Fear is prevalent, and there is a mass exodus to the mainland. Dunn uses the parallel of declining communication to declining population to illustrate the central paradox of the story.
Further questions for consideration:
• How do the novel’s two epigrams and the pangram suggest the subject of the novel?
• What statement is Dunn making with his central paradox?
• What does Dunn suggest about dictatorships and their origins?
• How do totalitarian regimes erode society and community?
#2 How does an understanding of a writer’s craft contribute to a critical analysis?

This question focuses on the limitations in style imposed by the writer on himself and whether the integrity of the story is maintained. Students will explore the various ways Dunn limits his use of the alphabet and how he changes the voices of the characters as the limits become more severe. Analysis of both situational and verbal irony will further illustrate the paradox and parallels in the novel.
Further questions for consideration:
• What are the implications of Dunn’s choice to make this an epistolary novel?
• How would a change in point of view change the message?
• How does Dunn manipulate the voices of his characters as their letter choices dwindle?
• How does Dunn increase his limitations and maintain legibility?
Essential Understandings
• Students will understand the negative effects of censorship and limitations imposed by totalitarian government.
• Students will read critically in order to write analytically.
• Students will understand how craft informs content in writing.
• Students will be able to defend or challenge a premise using evidence from a text.
Skills (from the Colorado Model Content Standards)

STANDARD 1: Students read and understand a variety of materials. In order to meet this standard, students will
• make connections between their reading and what they already know, and identify what they need to know about a topic before reading about it;
• adjust reading strategies for different purposes such as reading carefully, idea by idea; skimming and scanning; fitting materials into an organizational pattern, such as reading a novel chronologically; finding information to support particular ideas; and finding the sequence of steps in a technical publication.
STANDARD 2: Students write and speak for a variety of purposes and audiences. In order to meet this standard, students will support an opinion using various forms of persuasion (factual or emotional) in speaking and writing.
• support an opinion using various forms of persuasion (factual or emotional) in speaking and writing;
• experiment with stylistic elements such as voice, tone, and style.
STANDARD 3: Students write and speak using conventional grammar, usage, sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. In order to meet this standard, students will
• use pronoun reference correctly in writing
• use phrases and clauses for purposes of modification and parallel structure in writing and speaking;
• use internal capitalization and punctuation of secondary quotations in writing;
• use manuscript forms specified in various style manuals for writing (for example, indenting for extended quotations, precise placement and form of page numbers, appropriate line spacing); and refining spelling and grammatical skills
STANDARD 4:Students apply thinking skills to their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing. In order to meet this standard, students will
• make predictions, analyze, draw conclusions, and discriminate between fact and opinion in writing, reading, speaking, listening, and viewing;
• identify the purpose, perspective, and historical and cultural influences of a speaker, author, or director.
• recognize an author's point of view, purpose, and historical and cultural context;
• use reading, writing, listening, articulate speaking, and viewing to solve problems;
• know what constitutes literary quality based on elements such as the author's point of view, the author's selection of significant details, theme development, and the author's reflection of events and ideas of his or her lifetime; and
• critique the content of written work.
STANDARD 6:Students read and recognize literature as a record of human experience. In order to meet this standard, students will
• read literature to investigate common issues and interests;
• read literature to understand places, people, events, and vocabulary, both familiar and unfamiliar.
• read, respond to, and discuss novels, poetry, short stories, non-fiction, content-area and technical material, plays, essays, and speeches;
• use literary terminology accurately, such as theme, mood, diction, idiom, perspective, style, and point of view.
• understand the common themes in the literature of the world.
• develop and support a thesis about the craft and significance of a work of literature.
• understand the common themes in the literature.
(Colorado Department of Education)
Explanation and Definition of Key Terms

Irony: a perception of inconsistency, sometimes humorous, in which the significance and understanding of a statement or event is changed by its context.

Structural Irony: the use of a naïve hero, whose incorrect perceptions differ from
the reader’s correct ones.

Verbal Irony: a discrepancy between what is said and what is really meant;
sarcasm.

Satire: using humor to expose something or someone to ridicule.

Epistolary: 1. of or associated with letters or letter writing. 2. of, pertaining to, or consisting of letters: an epistolary novel

Lipogram: a written work composed of words selected so as to avoid the use of one or more letters of the alphabet.

Pangram: a phrase, sentence, or verse composed of all the letters of the alphabet: A quirky novel with pages of zany, jumbled lexicon.
Voice: the distinctive style or manner of expression of an author or of a character in a book.
Paradox: any person, thing, or situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory nature.

Epigram: a concise, clever, often paradoxical statement.

Epigraph: usually an inscription, as on a statue.

Totalitarianism: absolute control by the state or a governing branch of a highly centralized institution.
Censorship: the act of examining books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
OuLiPo: a French school of literature consisting of novels composed under certain constraints of language, plot, or structure.

Instructional Resources

The primary text for this unit is Ella Minnow Pea, by Mark Dunn. This is an epistolary, lipogrammatic novel, based on the pangram “The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.” On the island of Nollop, founded by the creator of this pangram, there is a statue in his honor. This sentence is tiled across the base as a tribute to his exemplary linguistic skills. One night, a tile falls and the citizens are no longer allowed to use that letter. Our unit and discussions will center on the implications of limiting communication and the subsequent effect of such limitation on the values and beliefs of this society. Examinations of language and communication, censorship, and totalitarianism will be part of the formative and summative assessment for this unit.
We will look at a variety of texts:

Fiction: Students will read an excerpt from Alphabetical Africa at Google Books
to experience an easier form of a lipogrammatic novel before embarking on our primary text. This is a scaffolding exercise and is meant to differentiate for students in need of a gateway into the primary work. http://books.google.com/books?id=28KTjDDXF4MC
An informal assessment of students understanding of the limitations of lipogrammatic writing will be an exercise in which they either begin every word with the same letter, or eliminate an often used letter from their writing.
Fiction: Students will be assigned independent literature groups in which they will read a dystopian novel together and participate in a blog discussion based on each text. A list of choices will be generated based on availability, and students will choose their own groups. Blogs will be monitored by the instructor for academic quality of responses. The rationale for this resource is to compare style and content of each author and connect each novel to the primary text. Text Choices: Anthem by Ayn Rand, 1984 or Animal Farm by George Orwell, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. A formal comparative paper will be assigned which builds on student responses and includes analysis of craft and content based on textual evidence.
Non-fiction: Students will read a variety articles concerning censorship by authors Mark Dunn, Ayn Rand, and George Orwell in order to compare their positions on this subject and the different ways they present their thoughts. These writers are from different countries and writing in different times. It will be interesting to compare their intensity concerning this issue. Students will discuss the literary and historical context of each of these pieces in class and write up an evaluation of the differences in each response to censorship by each author based on this discussion. See Appendix A for articles.
Poetry: Gyles Brandreth, who has re-written several of Shakespeare’s works as lipogramms, for example “Hamlet” without using the letter I, and “Othello” without using the letter O, wrote this lipogrammatic pangram poem in 1985. While this is not an example of OuLiPo, per se, because it is a poem, it is a good example of how pangrams can be manipulated for meaning. See Appendix B for text.
Film: Students will view Fahrenheit 451 to evaluate the impact of totalitarianism in this work in comparison to the primary text. Students will compare Tassie, from Ella Minnow Pea, to Guy Montag, in the film in relation to her statement: “In the sanctuary of my thoughts, I am a fearless renegade.” Students will then write their own response to this statement as it applies to them and what they have learned in this unit. (Final Reflection)
Assessments

Assessments for this unit will be both formative and summative. Formative assessments will be discussions of relevant materials and concepts in class, exit slips, literature circle blogs, and reflections. The summative assessments for this unit are the text to film comparison in-class timed writing, and the comparative literary analysis of Ella Minnow Pea and the independent novel in regards to answering the two essential questions for the unit.
Formative Assessments:

• Admin/Exit slips—daily reflections on the work
• Observations of discussions
• Weekly Reading Blog
• Author Censorship Reflection and Analysis
• Final Personal Reflection on Film Study Response

Summative Assessments:

• Literary Analysis of Two Dystopian Novels
• In-Class Timed Writing on Film Study

Assessment Rubrics

Observation of Discussions

ATTRIBUTE 10 15 20
LISTENING Recognizes and responds to others speaking. Uses and practices listening processes regularly. Habitually uses listening processes.
NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION Eye contact, gestures, posture, facial expression, voice. Comprehends some information from non-verbal cues. Draws accurate conclusions from body language and facial expressions. Able to recognize and use subtle non-verbal communication cues.
CO-OPERATION Sometimes shows ability to wait to give appropriate verbal / non-verbal responses. Usually shows ability to wait to give appropriate verbal / non-verbal responses. Habitually shows ability to wait with openness and awareness to give appropriate verbal / non-verbal responses.
PARTICIPATION Tells thoughts, feelings, ideas so others understand. Rarely talks during the discussion or talk is off the subject. Offers few ideas to the discussion. Shares freely and explains with details. Makes connections to what others say. Talk inspires others. Supports and leads others in discussion.

(Discussion rubric, 2009)

Advanced Placement Essay Rubric

# Description %
9-8 Superior papers are specific in their references, cogent in their definitions, and free of plot summary that is not relevant to the question. These essays need not be without flaws, but they demonstrate the writer's ability to discuss a literary work with insight and understanding and to control a wide range of the elements of effective composition. 100-92
7-6 These papers are less thorough, less perceptive or less specific than 9-8 papers. These essays are well-written but with less maturity and control than the top papers. They demonstrate the writer's ability to analyze a literary work, but they reveal a more limited understanding than do the papers in the 9-8 range. Generally, 6 essays present a less sophisticated analysis and less consistent command of the elements of effective writing than essays scored 7. 91-81
5 Superficiality characterizes these 5 essays. Discussion of meaning may be pedestrian, mechanical, or inadequately related to the chosen details. Typically, these essays reveal simplistic thinking and/or immature writing. They usually demonstrate inconsistent control over the elements of composition and are not as well conceived, organized, or developed as the upper-half papers. On the other hand, the writing is sufficient to convey the writer's ideas. 80-75
4-3 Discussion is likely to be unpersuasive, perfunctory, underdeveloped or misguided. The meaning they deduce may be inaccurate or insubstantial and not clearly related to the question. Part of the question may be omitted altogether. The writing may convey the writer's ideas, but it reveals weak control over such elements as diction, organization, syntax or grammar. Typically, these essays contain significant misinterpretations of the question or the work they discuss; they may also contain little, if any, supporting evidence, and practice paraphrase and plot summary at the expense of analysis. 74-60
2-1 These essays compound the weakness of essays in the 4-3 range and are frequently unacceptably brief. They are poorly written on several counts, including many distracting errors in grammar and mechanics. Although the writer may have made some effort to answer the question, the views presented have little clarity or coherence. 59-25
0 These essays respond with no more than a reference to the task, contain completely off-topic responses, or are blank. 24-0

(AP essay rubric, 2009)

Blog Rubric

Criteria 5 3 1 0
Structure Ideas (x2) All or almost all of the entries have a connection to structure. Most entries have a connection to structure. Few entries have a connection to structure. None of the entries have a connection to structure.
Analysis (x2) Analysis revealed in all or almost of the entries. Analysis revealed in most entries. Analysis revealed in few of the entries. No analysis revealed in any of the entries.
Format The proper format has been followed for all of the entries. The proper format has been followed for most of the entries. The proper format has been followed for few of the entries. The proper format has not been followed for any of the entries.
Mechanics All or almost all entries use correct spelling and grammar. Most entries use correct spelling and grammar. Few entries use correct spelling and grammar. No entries use correct spelling and grammar.
Completion All entries are present, in order, and together. All entries are present, but are either not together or in order. All entries are not present, but they are together or in order. All entries are not present, nor are they together or in order.

TOTAL________/


Literary Analysis Rubric

CATEGORY 20 15 10 5
Introduction The introduction is inviting, states the main topic and previews the structure of the paper. The introduction clearly states the main topic and previews the structure of the paper, but is not particularly inviting to the reader. The introduction states the main topic, but does not adequately preview the structure of the paper nor is it particularly inviting to the reader. There is no clear introduction of the main topic or structure of the paper.
Support for Topic Relevant, telling, quality details give the reader important information that goes beyond the obvious or predictable. Supporting details and information are relevant, but one key issue or portion of the analysis is unsupported. Supporting details and information are relevant, but several key issues or portions of the analysis are unsupported. Supporting details and information are typically unclear or not related to the topic.
Focus on Topic There is one clear, well-focused topic. Main idea stands out and is supported by detailed information. Main idea is clear but the supporting information is general. Main idea is somewhat clear but there is a need for more supporting information. The main idea is not clear. There is a seemingly random collection of information.
Literary Lens Use Seamlessly weaves literary lens into analysis of the novel. Use of lens is clear and accurate. Analysis enhances understanding of the novel. Analysis is relevant to the lens and novel.
Use of lens is clear and accurate. Analysis enhances understanding of the novel. Some effort to use lens for analysis of the novel but is not logical. Use of lens is unclear or inaccurate. Analysis somewhat enhances understanding of the novel. Lens is merely mentioned or non existent. Use of lens is both unclear and inaccurate. Analysis does not enhance understanding of the novel.
Organization The pacing is well-controlled. The writer knows when to slow down and elaborate, and when to pick up the pace and move on.
Details are placed in a logical order and the way they are presented effectively keeps the interest of the reader. The pacing is generally well-controlled but the writer occasionally does not elaborate enough.
Details are placed in a logical order, but the way in which they are presented/introduced sometimes makes the writing less interesting. The pacing is generally well-controlled but the writer sometimes repeats the same point over and over, or spends too much time on details that don't matter.
Some details are not in a logical or expected order, and this distracts the reader. The pacing often feels awkward to the reader. The writer elaborates when there is little need, or leaves out necessary supporting information. Many details are not in a logical or expected order. There is little sense that the writing is organized.
Grammar & Spelling (Conventions) Writer makes 2 or fewer errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. Writer makes 3-4 errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. Writer makes 5-6 errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. Writer makes more than 6 errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content.
No parallelism errors +5 Each parallelism error -1


Scope and Sequence

MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY
Introduction to Unit
Hand out packet
Review Essential Questions
Review Terms
Distribute books Set up Literature Circles
Review Expectations
Review Blog Responses
Allow Time for Groups to organize Look at Alphabetical Africa Together
Discussion of Lipogram, OuLiPo, and style Read Authors on Censorship
Discuss context and individual responses
Blog 1 Due
Weekly In Class Discussion
Review expectations for Author Censorship analysis-Due Monday
Brandreth Poem
Author Censorship Analysis Due
Discussion of responses Review Timed Writing Rubric/Exemplars In Class Timed Writing—Block
Lit Circles meet In Class Timed Writing—Block
Lit Circles meet Blog 2 Due
Weekly In Class Discussion
Review Timed Writing Rubric/Expectations/Exemplars Practice planning and thesis statements for timed writings In Class Timed Writing—Block
Lit Circles meet In Class Timed Writing—Block
Lit Circles meet Blog 3 Due
Weekly In Class Discussion
Review Requirements for analytical film comparison
View Film—Cornell Notes
Discuss connection to book View Film—Cornell Notes
Discuss connection to book View Film—Block—Cornell Notes
Discuss connection to book
View Film—Block—Cornell Notes
Discuss connection to book
Blog 4 Due
Weekly In Class Discussion
Rough Draft of Analytical Film Review Due Monday
Revision Strategies
Workshop Film/Text Analysis—3 edits! Flex Day Final Copy of Film/Text Analysis Due Final Copy of Film/Text Analysis Due Blog 5 Due
Written Reflection on Essential Questions

Appendix A
AYN RAND ON CENSORSHIP

Censorship
“Censorship” is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one’s own antagonists.
“Man’s Rights,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 98.
Censorship, in its old-fashioned meaning, is a government edict that forbids the discussion of some specific subjects or ideas—such, for instance, as sex, religion or criticism of government officials—an edict enforced by the government’s scrutiny of all forms of communication prior to their public release. But for stifling the freedom of men’s minds the modern method is much more potent; it rests on the power of nonobjective law; it neither forbids nor permits anything; it never defines or specifies; it merely delivers men’s lives, fortunes, careers, ambitions into the arbitrary power of a bureaucrat who can reward or punish at whim. It spares the bureaucrat the troublesome necessity of committing himself to rigid rules—and it places upon the victims the burden of discovering how to please him, with a fluid unknowable as their only guide.
No, a federal commissioner may never utter a single word for or against any program. But what do you suppose will happen if and when, with or without his knowledge, a third-assistant or a second cousin or just a nameless friend from Washington whispers to a television executive that the commissioner does not like producer X or does not approve of writer Y or takes a great interest in the career of starlet Z or is anxious to advance the cause of the United Nations?
“Have Gun, Will Nudge,”
The Objectivist Newsletter, March 1962, 9.
For years, the collectivists have been propagating the notion that a private individual’s refusal to finance an opponent is a violation of the opponent’s right of free speech and an act of “censorship.”
It is “censorship,” they claim, if a newspaper refuses to employ or publish writers whose ideas are diametrically opposed to its policy.
It is “censorship,” they claim, if businessmen refuse to advertise in a magazine that denounces, insults and smears them . . . .
And then there is Newton N. Minow [then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission] who declares: “There is censorship by ratings, by advertisers, by networks, by affiliates which reject programming offered to their areas.” It is the same Mr. Minow who threatens to revoke the license of any station that does not comply with his views on programming—and who claims that that is not censorship . . . .
[This collectivist notion] means that the ability to provide the material tools for the expression of ideas deprives a man of the right to hold any ideas. It means that a publisher has to publish books he considers worthless, false or evil—that a TV sponsor has to finance commentators who choose to affront his convictions—that the owner of a newspaper must turn his editorial pages over to any young hooligan who clamors for the enslavement of the press. It means that one group of men acquires the “right” to unlimited license—while another group is reduced to helpless irresponsibility.
“Man’s Rights,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 98.

GEORGE ORWELL ON CENSORSHIP

THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, but was not written down until about the end of 1943. By the time when it came to be written it was obvious that there would be great difficulty in getting it published (in spite of the present book shortage which ensures that anything describable as a book will 'sell'), and in the event it was refused by four publishers. Only one of these had any ideological motive. Two had been publishing anti-Russian books for years, and the other had no noticeable political colour. One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the preliminary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information, who appear to have warned him, or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it.
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Any fairminded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war official censorship has not been particularly irksome. We have not been subjected to the kind of totalitarian 'co-ordination' that it might have been reasonable to expect. The press has some justified grievances, but on the whole the Government has behaved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions. The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news - things which on their own merits would get the big headlines - being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralized, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.
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But now to come back to this book of mine. The reaction towards it of most English intellectuals will be quite simple: 'It oughtn't to have been published'. Naturally, those reviewers who understand the art of denigration will not attack it on political grounds but on literary ones. They will say that it is a dull, silly book and a disgraceful waste of paper. This may well be true, but it is obviously not the whole of the story. One does not say that a book 'ought not to have been published' merely because it is a bad book. After all, acres of rubbish are printed daily and no one bothers. The English intelligentsia, or most of them, will object to this book because it traduces their Leader and (as they see it) does harm to the cause of progress. If it did the opposite they would have nothing to say against it, even if its literary faults were ten times as glaring as they are. The success of, for instance, the Left Book Club over a period of four or five years shows how willing they are to tolerate both scurrility and slipshod writing, provided that it tells them what they want to hear.
The issue involved here is quite a simple one: Is every opinion, however unpopular - however foolish, even - entitled to a hearing? Put it in that form and nearly any English intellectual will feel that he ought to say 'Yes'. But give it a concrete shape, and ask, 'How about an attack on Stalin? Is that entitled to a hearing?', and the answer more often than not will be 'No'. In that case the current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, and so the principle of free speech lapses. Now, when one demands liberty of speech and of the press, one is not demanding absolute liberty. There always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship, so long as organized societies endure. But freedom, as Rosa Luxembourg said, is 'freedom for the other fellow'. The same principle is contained in the famous words of Voltaire: 'I detest what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it'. If the intellectual liberty which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of western civilization means anything at all, it means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he believes to be the truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way. Both capitalist democracy and the western versions of Socialism have till recently taken that principle for granted. Our Government, as I have already pointed out, still makes some show of respecting it. The ordinary people in the street - partly, perhaps, because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to be intolerant about them - still vaguely hold that 'I suppose everyone's got a right to their own opinion'. It is only, or at any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as well as in practice.
One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that 'bourgeois liberty' is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who 'objectively' endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought. This argument was used, for instance, to justify the Russian purges. The most ardent Russophile hardly believed that all of the victims were guilty of all the things they were accused of. but by holding heretical opinions they 'objectively' harmed the régime, and therefore it was quite right not only to massacre them but to discredit them by false accusations. The same argument was used to justify the quite conscious lying that went on in the leftwing press about the Trotskyists and other Republican minorities in the Spanish civil war. And it was used again as a reason for yelping against habeas corpus when Mosley was released in 1943.
These people don't see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won't stop at Fascists. Soon after the suppressed Daily Worker had been reinstated, I was lecturing to a workingmen's college in South London. The audience were working-class and lower-middle class intellectuals - the same sort of audience that one used to meet at Left Book Club branches. The lecture had touched on the freedom of the press, and at the end, to my astonishment, several questioners stood up and asked me: Did I not think that the lifting of the ban on the Daily Worker was a great mistake? When asked why, they said that it was a paper of doubtful loyalty and ought not to be tolerated in war time. I found myself defending the Daily Worker, which has gone out of its way to libel me more than once. But where had these people learned this essentially totalitarian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it from the Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort. The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous. The case of Mosley illustrates this. In 1940 it was perfectly right to intern Mosley, whether or not he had committed any technical crime. We were fighting for our lives and could not allow a possible quisling to go free. To keep him shut up, without trial, in 1943 was an outrage. The general failure to see this was a bad symptom, though it is true that the agitation against Mosley's release was partly factitious and partly a rationalization of other discontents. But how much of the present slide towards Fascist ways of thought is traceable to the 'anti-Fascism' of the past ten years and the unscrupulousness it has entailed?
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I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech - the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don't convince me and that our civilization over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice. For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:
By the known rules of ancient liberty.
The word ancient emphasizes the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice. An example of this is the failure of the numerous and vocal English pacifists to raise their voices against the prevalent worship of Russian militarism. According to those pacifists, all violence is evil and they have urged us at every stage of the war to give in or at least to make a compromise peace. But how many of them have ever suggested that war is also evil when it is waged by the Red Army? Apparently the Russians have a right to defend themselves, whereas for us to do [so] is a deadly sin. One can only explain this contradiction in one way: that is, by a cowardly desire to keep in with the bulk of the intelligentsia, whose patriotism is directed towards the USSR rather than towards Britain. I know that the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves. But at least let us have no more nonsense about defending liberty against Fascism. If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. In our country - it is not the same in all countries: it was not so in republican France, and it is not so in the USA today [i.e. 1945(!)] - it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact that I have written this preface.

MARK DUNN ON CENSORSHIP

BT: Where did the inspiration for this particular story come from?
MD: I have some major concerns about people who impose their beliefs upon others, and by doing so rob others of their civil liberties. And that was an area that I explored in some other work and that I really wanted to take to an extreme, but in such a way that it didn't repulse readers. It was almost like I wanted to have it both ways. I wanted to employ some really high stakes, but I didn't want to have a blood bath like a lot of dystopian novels do. I wanted it to be something that high school kids could read and think about what the book was trying to say without being disturbed by its presentation. And I think that's why a couple of people have compared it to a "kindler, gentler 1984."
BT: You manage to explore a topic as weighty as totalitarianism with an impressively light touch. Did you set out intending to find a balance between these diametrically opposed qualities?
MD: Which you think would be difficult, but once you get used to the light touch, you can sort of keep it going and be a little bit dark, a little bit ironic, and a little satirical in places, but not do it to such an extreme that it's going to put people off. I think I achieved a balance that I'm comfortable with.
BT: Did you have something topical in mind when you chose to tackle this subject?
MD: At the risk of offending a lot of people who are really calcified in their religious views, a lot of what concerns me, and has for years, is the imposition of one's religious views on others and the ramifications of that. As I was finishing this book, they were blowing up the Buddhist statues in [Bamyan] Afghanistan. That resonated really strongly for me. That they were so convinced that they knew the only path to God that they would destroy something the things that other people had created in their own attempt to understand God is incredibly offensive to me.

Appendix B
Gyles Brandreth
Bold Nassan quits his caravan,
A hazy mountain grot to scan;
Climbs jaggy rocks to find his way,
Doth tax his sight, but far doth stray.

Not work of man, nor sport of child
Finds Nassan on this mazy wild;
Lax grow his joints, limbs toil in vain—
Poor wight! why didst thou quit that plain?

Vainly for succour Nassan calls;
Know, Zillah, that thy Nassan falls;
But prowling wolf and fox may joy
To quarry on thy Arab boy.

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