Theme Of Censorship In Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel written by Ray Bradbury in 1953. The book describes what Ray Bradbury anticipates the world would be like in the future. He depicted a society in which values like appreciation of nature, independent thinking and meaningful conversations are not practiced but discouraged and replaced with excessive amounts of television viewing and listening to the radio. He envisioned a society where firmen do not put out fires but start them, particularly when it comes to the burning of books. Censorship is the altering or suppression of speech, public communication and other information that may be considered harmful determined by the government. Censorship is a recurring theme throughout Fahrenheit 451 that is represented by the major control the government has over the society specifically through the law that bans the producing, owning and reading of books. The use of censorship in publications is harmful to society as it motivates members of the society to rebel against the government as seen in the novel Fahrenheit 451 and in the real world as it causes citizens to make uninformed decisions both of which result in adverse repercussions.

In the dystopian society portrayed in Fahrenheit 451, the government has prevented the citizens from knowing anything about the past by making it illegal to own and read books. To ensure that no one discovers what is to be learnt from literature, the firemen are responsible for burning books whenever they are found. This practice backfires whenever a citizen uncovers the truth about what …show more content…
“Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read." (George Bernard