Censorship In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

The plot line in Fahrenheit 451 is centered around the absence of knowledge and true understanding, that comes with reading books. Society as a whole are not legally permitted to read books, and any book that is found must be burned by the firemen. In the world described in the book, the people are being manipulated into thinking that reading is a horrendous pastime. Their world slowly becomes a center for the censorship of people’s lives, a twisted democracy and the gradual deprivation of freedom, that all results in the actions of a few people to make a change. The people themselves were censored throughout their entire lives because of what was deemed socially acceptable behavior. For instance, Clarisse McClellan was sent to a psychiatrist …show more content…
A direct result of banning the books is the loss of knowledge and expression. Montag’s wife, Mildred, is a prime example of what happens when a person is deprived of the basic necessities for intellectual stimulation. She was solely interested in the television and said to Montag “it’s really fun. It'll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed. How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a wall-TV put in. It's only two thousand dollars.”(Bradbury, 20) When she began referring to them as her “family”,Montag knew that he had become a complete afterthought to her. When Montage asked her where they first met, neither of them could remember. They had been so blinded by the way society was being run, that they forgot one of the most important moments of their relationship. It became clear to Montag that he no longer loved his wife when he realized that he would not cry if she became successful in her attempts to overdose on sleeping pills. Their ground that their marriage stood on had disintegrated, because of the ban of deep conversation. No relationship could stand to last when people are not permitted to express themselves and engage in meaningful …show more content…
The government is still loosely based on a democracy, which is shown through the conversation between Mildred and her friends who discuss the upcoming elections and who they will vote for as president. This right that the citizens are permitted to exercise makes it appear as though they are living in a democracy, but there is also a mix of totalitarianism within the government system. A totalitarian style government holds any information that they do not want to share with the public to themselves. The government had re-written history and twisted it to say that Benjamin Franklin authorized the burning of books. So the government is publicizing what they want the citizens to know while withholding loads of information from the