Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury, takes place in a future America where books are forbidden and firemen burn down the houses that contain them. Guy Montag, once a fireman and under the influence of censorship, rebels when he discovers the magnificent power of books and the effect they have upon him. By ridding society of a resource for knowledge that is no longer deemed valuable, Bradbury warns that censorship shapes individuals who cannot think for themselves and leaves society as a whole shallow and unaware of the world around them.
Without books available to assist in developing opinions of the world, the citizens of Fahrenheit 451 are left without the ability to string events and knowledge together into a coherent conversation. Early …show more content…
When "each man [is] the image of every other," then all are truly content, Beatty, Montag's boss, claims (55). Starved of any useful knowledge, empty brains lie in wait for information to be thrown at them. The government offers TV as a source of news, but it is first twisted and curtailed, bombarding the viewers with a terrible symphony of information, colors, and music. Because of this, the government holds sway over the citizens of Montag’s world easily, as they cannot decide for themselves that they are being held in a corrupt world. When Captain Beatty attempts to reclaim Montag from the world of books back into the world of the firemen, he ironically utilizes literature to his advantage. Faber, communicating with Montag via a two-way earpiece, warns Montag that the Captain is “trying to confuse,” indicating that even with his bank of knowledge, Montag still needed someone else to guide him and support him through his first steps towards independence (103). The pliability of the world of Fahrenheit 451 cannot be traced back to anything other than the lack of knowledge available in books.
Censorship is a relevant danger that Bradbury addresses all throughout Fahrenheit 451, going as far as to claim that censorship will result in the suppression of deep thought and individual opinions, two necessary and instinctive traits of the human race. It
Without books available to assist in developing opinions of the world, the citizens of Fahrenheit 451 are left without the ability to string events and knowledge together into a coherent conversation. Early …show more content…
When "each man [is] the image of every other," then all are truly content, Beatty, Montag's boss, claims (55). Starved of any useful knowledge, empty brains lie in wait for information to be thrown at them. The government offers TV as a source of news, but it is first twisted and curtailed, bombarding the viewers with a terrible symphony of information, colors, and music. Because of this, the government holds sway over the citizens of Montag’s world easily, as they cannot decide for themselves that they are being held in a corrupt world. When Captain Beatty attempts to reclaim Montag from the world of books back into the world of the firemen, he ironically utilizes literature to his advantage. Faber, communicating with Montag via a two-way earpiece, warns Montag that the Captain is “trying to confuse,” indicating that even with his bank of knowledge, Montag still needed someone else to guide him and support him through his first steps towards independence (103). The pliability of the world of Fahrenheit 451 cannot be traced back to anything other than the lack of knowledge available in books.
Censorship is a relevant danger that Bradbury addresses all throughout Fahrenheit 451, going as far as to claim that censorship will result in the suppression of deep thought and individual opinions, two necessary and instinctive traits of the human race. It