Is Bradbury's Symbolism In Fahrenheit 451?

books symbolizes a death of individuals being burned by governmental regulating their lives to meaninglessness. Many other authors had input about Bradbury’s choice in not only writing a novel based on a futuristic dystopian society, but in his execution and reasoning. Infamous dystopic novels are compared to Bradbury’s due to their criticism of society by using outlandish tales that have a deeper meaning. While some characters, such as Mildred and Captain Beatty, in the novel love the world they live in, Bradbury uses the polarization and Montag’s metamorphosis to display how the role of technology is “an already planned murder of the individual, an easy victim in a metal landscape”(Mitchell 225). It is a call to action to not let technology rule over human interaction and to not allow it to disrupt human’s ability to communicate. Quite commonly, the characters in dystopic novels view their world as a utopia. This is paradoxical in many dystopian features, and Fahrenheit 451 seems to continue on this route. Censorship in this novel is justified by the government by books causing confusion on the truth and creating unhappiness “we stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought”(Bradbury 59). That phrase is spoken by Captain Beatty, a character in the book who is an advocate for the work the firemen do and support the government in ridding the world of these books. He agrees that books only create pointless thinking and theories that are incorrect. But this is paradoxical as well because the whole idea of firemen being the ones who burn the books and ridding the society of history is opposite to what Bradbury knows. The extreme contrasts of beliefs of people such as Clarisse and Beatty exemplify how polarizations reflect upon the paradoxical nature of Fahrenheit 451. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury challenges people to compare it to the reality in which they live. His goal was to use relevant and associable ideas and people to get people to associate it with the prejudices of its own time (Foster 229). This is a key reason why Fahrenheit 451 got so much attention. The inspirations of other works from his time and evolving his own pieces led to a full novel exploring the idea of censorship and its effect on society. It’s a valuable piece that can be used to answer the question “If this goes on…”(Gaimen 3) that illuminates a path toward a future not repeating mistakes from the past. This idea specifically reflects Bradbury’s time in the 1950s when radio shows and television shows talked a lot about the Cold War. The news censored what they wanted America to see and Bradbury saw that if this went on, it could lead to an unwanted future. Books symbolize individual thinking and Bradbury uses this insane world that actually resembles the real world to get this idea across to an …show more content…
It is evident that Bradbury seeks true human interaction without technology or government to get in the way. In Fahrenheit 451 it is common that these characters are indulged with synthetic entertainment and fall into the “intellectual holocaust”(Eller 168) Bradbury fears and doesn’t want for the future. In attempting to enhance the message, Bradbury used Montag’s interactions with other characters to heighten tension between the characters. Each character has a clear position on the topic of censorship and their interactions amongst each other reflect their individual views. This is another piece of evidence that creates the paradox of censorship because while the censorship was created by the government to prevent conflict of interests and ideas, it just added another …show more content…
The firemen in the world are known to prevent fires and help those in need while the firemen in the book are tools used by the government to take away freedom of expressing individual intellectuality and exploration of outer realms only present in literature. Bradbury uses the actions of characters following the tendency to go along with the societal view to exemplify the possible devolution of individuality in response to this book environment (Amis 232). It is cautionary to those who tend to follow the norms and sheds light on what it means to find your own voice and use it to make a case. Bradbury’s ability to balance absurdity and reality is what makes this story to be able to be a part of mass culture in and effective