Fahrenheit 451 Historical Analysis

After reading Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, it is easy to imagine its fictional society becoming a reality in the current society today. The use of actual material books is already becoming obscure. In Bradbury’s story, Guy Montag is a fireman honored with the job of burning books. Books were burned because they were seen as sources of useless information that made people think about their world around them. Soon Montag is torn between believing in what society thinks and between what he thinks himself. It would not be hard to realistically picture the society today resembling the society in Fahrenheit 451, because of the digitalization of information which leads to negative affects on the society and a more controlling government. Today all information everywhere is found digitally which majorly impacts the reliance on actual books. With the rate of the usage of actual books diminishing every day, it can be reasonably inferred that one day the society could …show more content…
To avoid this ending in today’s society, people should not ban books. Books portray a person’s opinion and liberty to speak out for themselves. If that person’s book is banned, their freedom of speech and liberty to think freely is taken away. If their opinion and thoughts are banned, what will stop them from banning another person’s? Or another? Or an entire nation? Once a government starts to ban books, there is no limit to what they will ban or what they will control. Freedom will become non-existent along with books.
A controlling government will be the result of the negative affects of the digitalization of information in today’s age. Fahrenheit 451’s fictional society could soon become a reality if society today continues to find ways to replace books. Making all information digital is a great way to accelerate society down that path. What Bradbury believed was fictitious could very well be the society people live in the