Although Fahrenheit 451 is comprised of a futuristic universe and a backdrop of Bradbury’s own 1950s America inspiration, its central themes are certainly still applicable in our current time era: perhaps 2014 is wedged directly in between the ‘50s, which marked the awakening of a technological age; and the dystopian society that lurked within Bradbury’s own imagination. Fahrenheit 451 brazenly explores the themes of technology, the destruction of the natural world, and control and censorship, forcing us to compare our own society to that of one of Bradbury’s darkest and most provoking creations: an organised chaos where individual thought is banished, and literature is disregarded as something that separates humankind. Fahrenheit 451 is more
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In the 1930s, book burnings were scheduled regularly in Nazi Germany to destroy all texts deemed as ‘degenerate’, especially those written by Jewish authors, including Karl Marx and Albert Einstein. The books were burned as a blatant attempt at purifying Germany – in fact, Joseph Goebbels presented a speech to students in Berlin once, telling them that, “the era of Jewish intellectualism is at an end.” In Fahrenheit 451, all literature is destroyed on account of a similar anti-intellectual endgame, as explained by Beatty in the novel: “Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally ‘bright’… And wasn’t it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal… but everyone made equal.” Literal book burning is considered in today’s society to be outdated, although censorship is far from extinct. Thousands of books have been removed from circulation and censored from publication in the past century, including Fahrenheit 451 itself. Access to books is often controlled, even if people are not aware of it: From Hitler to Beatty, censorship has always been and always will be
In the 1930s, book burnings were scheduled regularly in Nazi Germany to destroy all texts deemed as ‘degenerate’, especially those written by Jewish authors, including Karl Marx and Albert Einstein. The books were burned as a blatant attempt at purifying Germany – in fact, Joseph Goebbels presented a speech to students in Berlin once, telling them that, “the era of Jewish intellectualism is at an end.” In Fahrenheit 451, all literature is destroyed on account of a similar anti-intellectual endgame, as explained by Beatty in the novel: “Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally ‘bright’… And wasn’t it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal… but everyone made equal.” Literal book burning is considered in today’s society to be outdated, although censorship is far from extinct. Thousands of books have been removed from circulation and censored from publication in the past century, including Fahrenheit 451 itself. Access to books is often controlled, even if people are not aware of it: From Hitler to Beatty, censorship has always been and always will be