Individual Freedom In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

In the United States, we often forget how fortunate we truly are. We live in a society built on the idea of individual freedom. We have the right to do practically anything we want within reason. The United States, through dedicated individuals, has progressed immensely since its founding many years ago and is now one of the most socially and economically advanced nations in the world. Americans, however, do not realize that there are many countries in the world where the government withholds basic rights from its citizens. What if the United States became one of these nations? Ray Bradbury explores this concept in his novel Fahrenheit 451. The protagonist Guy Montag lives in a futuristic United States where owning a book is a crime. …show more content…
The members of society we see in the novel are more concerned with electronic devices around them than the other members of society. Mildred Montag, Guy Montag’s wife, best exemplifies this. She spends all of her free time in front of television screens where she watches her television family. Mildred feels a greater connection to her imaginary family than she feels to her own husband. In fact, she is unable to remember how she met Guy. Guy is also unable to remember their first meeting until he goes through his transformation and becomes aware of how important books actually are. In addition to Mildred, the entire firemen crew that Montag works with also lacks the compassion we would expect members of our society to have. On one of their routine calls, they find an elderly woman at a house filled with books, and they begin burning the house. The elderly woman, however, refuses to vacate the house. Montag is the only one who attempts to help her, but he is unable to convince the woman to leave her burning house. Society expects people in a position of power, such as the firemen, to help all citizens, but the society Bradbury creates is entirely the opposite of what we would