3 Magical Words

I won’t tell you the person who said this because I want you to gain this knowledge without preconceived notion of who the author is (a New Critics approach if you will) but someone recently said that there are only 3 ‘magical’ words in the English language. These words are magical in the sense that they stir up such strong emotional responses that their effect when spoken or written have a magical effect.
The first of these three words is of course tied directly to Tropic of Cancer; cunt. The first time I read this word in Tropic of Cancer, I was thinking wow he must really hate this girl because in our modern society this word is considered by many to be one of the worst possible names you can call someone. This word is so vulgar by today’s standards that I can guarantee that if I call anyone this, especially a woman, that I’m going to get swung at. Now with that being said, you can understand my reaction (and probably yours) to the use of this word the first time in Tropic of Cancer. And then the word was used again, and again, and again – and again. Because I have read it so many times over and over now, it has lost its magic. Before reading this book I had used the word like 2 times in my whole life. Now, my brother does something as simple as drinking the last of the milk and I’m like “You fucking cunt”. J/K - but you could imagine. To him this word would still sound pretty offensive but to me the word has lost its magic, thanks to Miller. So maybe if we get everyone to read Tropic of Cancer, we will have to come up with a new, magical word to replace this one word among the three magical words in the English language.
On a higher level, I think what my point with all this is and what it has to do with censorship and what we’ve discussed in class is the more we are exposed to something, the more acceptable it becomes. Which is why people choose to censor these things in the first place – to keep it from becoming common; things like children’s exposure to violence, sexual promiscuity, nudity, etc.