Do students really need trigger warnings?

SALFORD University has issued a trigger warning about the ‘potentially distressing’ works of Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte. Actor Simon Callow rightfully suggests changing the content alert to: ‘This book may make you think or in extreme cases make you feel.’ It’s time for a consensus on what our civilisation needs to study and hand on to the next generation before it descends into historical oblivion and cultural irrelevance.

ANN FARMER, Woodford Green, Essex. WE SHOULD be concerned that university literature students need information on the content of novels by Dickens and the Bronte sisters. What have they been reading up to this point?

LESLEY LEWIS, Aberaeron, Ceredigion. DO I need to give a trigger warning when I read Little Red Riding Hood to my grandchildren?

DAVID BECK, Waterlooville, Hants. AS A schoolboy, if a book to be studied had a trigger warning, it would have been the first page I’d have turned to!

MARTIN HOOK, Ashford, Kent. WARWICK University has gone too far by banning the phrase trigger warning because it may be too ‘provocative’ for sensitive students.

Some of the best stories have difficult content: Star Wars hero Luke has serious family issues; Titanic gets waterlogged; and don’t get me started about Disney’s Bambi. Surely we need to teach young people resilience so they can face the positive and negative in life.

D. FITZGERALD, Melbourne, Australia. WITH the Wokes laying down the law, will this be the next TV announcement: ‘We would like to make our viewers aware that the introduction to the following programme may contain trigger warnings that some will find upsetting.’

G. AUST, Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey.