Harmful to Sanity Laws are created to protect people. But a law can protect too much. When a law forces a set of things that have been known for years to be good to become renowned as "bad," is the law right or were the lawmakers simply crazy? Such is the question about Michigan's recently passed "Harmful to Minors" legislation. The new Michigan law is an astonishingly vague thing, designed to prevent minors from viewing anything that may be potentially harmful. However, because the new Michigan law is so vague, it can be wrongfully applied to classic pieces of British Literature. How could lawmakers have written the "Harmful to Minors" law so vaguely as to make it wrongfully applicable to British works with established literary merit? Most states have similar laws preventing minors from coming into contact with specific content deemed unsuitable for children by the respective governments. "The new Michigan law goes beyond the law of any other state by requiring booksellers to prevent any possibility that a minor can examine "harmful" works, including novels and works of non-fiction that do not contain pictures." (CBLDF - Press Releases: CBLDF Joins Michigan "Harmful To Minors" Fight 1). Therefore, if a book, magazine, pamphlet, or other material contains any words or phrases that could be construed as "harmful," it is illegal for minors to acquire it. Sadly, the word "minor" means "anyone not over the age of eighteen years." Therefore, a high-school aged individual is legally prohibited from acquiring anything "harmful." This does not seem a large detail until one realizes that it includes standard components of most high school English classes. The classics have been considered classics for a long time, and should not be reevaluated based on a vague law passed by a single State. Shakespeare's classic Hamlet is one of the most frequently read plays. Sadly, it can be construed as "harmful to minors." Hamlet is one of the most indecisive and hesitant people in literature. As Coleridge commented, "The poet places [Hamlet] in the most stimulating circumstances that a human being can be placed in…What is the effect upon the son? -- instant action and pursuit of revenge? No: endless reasoning and hesitating." (De Grazia 1). However, Hamlet still winds up with his moderately happy ending; his father revenged and his uncle dead. Hamlet is led to this ending through his indecision and hesitant nature. By suggesting that thinking actions through gets one killed, the wrong message may be sent to children; thus readers may become more impetuous and foolhardy. Impetuous people lead short life spans; therefore Hamlet can be construed as harmful in one respect. Another school of thought characterizes Hamlet as "a play that centers on the crisis of the masculine subject and its 'radical confrontation with the sexualized maternal body.'" (Lehmann and Starks 1). In short, Hamlet is widely known to have an Oedipus complex. Since he does wind up getting what he wants, this may make it seem as though lusting after one's own mother is good. Most minors have simple thought processes; therefore if one should espy this connection, the prince of Denmark may become a role model, which would certainly be harmful. A minor could also feel so strongly against Hamlet's Oedipus complex that, without proper channeling, the individual may become repressed and eventually hate all womanhood, his mother being symbolic of that group. Since misogyny is not culturally acceptable, this would be psychologically harmful to the minor and the surrounding people. Since there is more than one context in which Hamlet could be construed as "harmful" to minors, Michigan's new law certainly makes this beloved literary classic illegal for access by anyone under the age of 18. It is not only bound volumes that the law encompasses, but anything written, including poetry, as well. Classic poems such as Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," for instance, fall under the heading of "harmful to minors" and are thus illegal. In the case of "Kubla Khan," the fact that the poem centers primarily on drugs is a significant point. "Coleridge…was addicted to opium, and his writing became chaotically uneven. "Kubla Khan" is the best known [sic] of his drug- influenced poems." (Poetry: Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1). Yet "Kubla Khan" is a world-renowned poem, taught in classrooms as early as seventh grade in some programs. If a minor should make the odd connection that if he or she does an illegal drug, then he or she will write a poem that will become world-renowned, it doubtless would be harmful to the minor. Another potentially harmful aspect to Coleridge's work was the unnatural imagery evoked. Normally this would never be a problem, but "Coleridge was responsible for attempting to present the supernatural as real," said Paul Brians. Therein lies the problem, for a minor's perception of reality must be different than that of an adult. Why else could a distinction be made? If a minor does not know that the supernatural imagery in "Kubla Khan" does not exist, he or she may believe that it does, and thus encounter psychological difficulty later in life. Since psychological difficulty is harmful regardless of age, "Kubla Khan" can once again be considered potentially "harmful to minors." A larger effect is gained upon discovery that the new Michigan law incriminates larger bodies of British Literature. Gothic novels as a genre have enough bizarre subject matter to be classified as "harmful to minors" very quickly. Chaucer and many other authors utilized the concept of "courtly love," which would certainly not be socially acceptable today (Benson 1).[Note: Got points off for failing to explain the concept. Essentially, it's rationalized adultery. For more, see Robert Parker's novel "Bad Business".] Minors would become socially outcast if they raised the issue, thus incriminating Chaucer and the other authors. "Throughout late Eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British fiction, sons are exhorted to see their parents' female wards as sisters; older men adopt paternal stances to young, unprotected women; and servants love their masters as children ideally love their parents," remarks Julie Shaffer in her work "Familial Love, Incest, and Female Desire in Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century British Women's Novels". This process, dubbed "familialization," crops up quite frequently (Shaffer 1). Normally this would raise no qualms, but such relationships are not so widely accepted these days. Such relationships often lead to incest; Jane Austen's novels contain many examples of inter-cousin marriage. Since taking up such ideas would doubtless ostracize the minor, these works are certainly "potentially harmful." One interesting counterpoint is that those minors who would typically be caught reading Hamlet, Prince of Denmark are not at a level where they could be harmed by the violence and psychological issues contained within. Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," however, is a classic British children's poem. "Jabberwocky" contains some very violent imagery that is not suitable for many minors. "One, two, one, two, and through and through / The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! / He left it dead and with its head / He went galumphing back" (Jabberwocky 1). The "classic children's poem" includes juvenile warriors taking sharp weapons to hunt and decapitate dangerous creatures that stand a decent chance of maiming the attacker. In fact, it encourages such behavior. The poem ends with the elder figure, presumably the boy's father, congratulating him on killing the Jabberwock. Condoning violent behavior is certainly "potentially harmful to minors". "Jabberwocky" is a classic children's poem, and it should not be illegal for a minor to possess a copy of this glorious work in any state. The new Michigan law making it illegal for minors to view or acquire any material, printed or otherwise, that may be "potentially harmful to minors" needs to become less vague. It is not difficult to prove that many things that are considered classics are now illegal under Michigan law. In most cases, a small amount of literary analysis is all that is required. In some, one needs only examine the subject matter to find sufficient proof. The Michigan law is currently so vague that it criminalizes much more than skin magazines and romance novels. It criminalizes classic British literature, classic movies, and so much more. Classics are classics, and by definition have established literary merit and should not be banned. Even minors need to know that there were people who wrote things and have had their names written down for decades because the things they wrote are valuable and have meaning. Books need to be respected, not condemned. Or Bradbury's vision may well become the reality it was meant to warn against. [Note: Was chastized for not explaining the Bradbury reference. For those of you who care to know, it refers to "Farenheit 451," a book about burning books.]