Fahrenheit 451 And 1984 Comparison Essay

Written during the time of two of the most totalitarian regimes of all time, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley fascinated the world by writing about their fears of oppression through exaggerated dystopian societies. In each author 's most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and Brave New World, these explore what it means to have your humanity taken and replaced by a false sense of place in the world. All three dystopian societies use cruel tools to take individual rights in order to keep the masses subdued and harmless to the established order. The oligarchs take away literature to keep the population uneducated, governments remove history so the people cannot learn about what freedom use to mean and the magnates punish anyone …show more content…
Big Brother knows that if people are unable to express free will though literature, they will become disenfranchised and submit to his will. While Big Brother and the members of the Inner Circle ban most literature, the writing of literature, or lack thereof, is a more prevalent idea than in Fahrenheit 451. While Montag commits crime by reading literature, at no point does he write any of his own. On the contrary, Winston act of defiance comes from writing due to all banned literature being already gone. This focus on writing versus reading shows Bradbury and Orwell’s differing views on censorship and destruction of literature, Bradbury feared the inability to read old literature while Orwell feared the inability to write new literature. Orwell’s novel offers more insight into the view of literature when Winston thinks that, “The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.” One notable difference between the destruction of literature in Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 is that in 1984, books that promote the Party are still allowed as they are used to help Big Brother. However, those books don 't