Examples Of Totalitarianism In Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 is a book by Ray Bradbury, written after World War II and it examines the corruption of technology in a dystopian society. This book explains how a dystopian society works and how people are so attached to television and cars and do not enjoy the natural world. People in a dystopian society are full of fear and sadness. They do not have equality or freedom, they are all so soaked up in technology that it is illegal for them to do simple stuff, such as, reading books. The book, Fahrenheit 451 explains how firefighters start fires rather than stopping them. A firefighter’s job is do burn books, since books are illegal to have because they go against the power of technology and modernization. In a dystopian society, people should be unhappy, unequal, violent, and brutalized and that is what is exactly being seen throughout this book. As Ray Bradbury captures the attention of many readers, he captures our attention on how the future could be if technology would become so extreme. Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451 is not about control, but it is a novel about how television destroys curiosity in reading literature.

The people in Fahrenheit 451 let the government and media control them like robots, they do not think on their own and are so focused on obeying what they are being told that they do not even question what is being communicated to them by the government. “The most important single thing we had to pound into ourselves is that we were not important….We’re nothing more than dust jackets for books, of no significance otherwise.” (Bradbury 153). This quote shows how the books are being coated in dust and not read or enjoyed for the knowledge they can provide. The books are banned from being read, therefore the people in this society are just “dust jackets”. These “dust jackets” lie on the books with “no significance

Fahrenheit 451 is currently Bradbury's most famous written work of social criticism. It deals with serious problems of control of the masses by the media, the banning of books, and the suppression of the mind (with censorship). Even though Bradbury published this novel in 1953, it predicted a major outlook on how the future’s society would turn out. Technology plays a big part in how we all function in our everyday lives. With technology, everything is much more convenient, and everyone has a much easier access to voice their opinions. In the novel, in order to keep this in line, the government created a culture where it is forbidden to have any outside influences which would promote individual thoughts. In the result of this new law,

Finally, throughout the novel Bradbury presents a conflict between ignorance and understanding. The general society is being numbed into believing that knowledge makes people disagree with each other and unhappy. To prevent people from reading and gaining knowledge, the firemen burn all books. By committing these actions, they are promoting sameness and ignorance, to supposedly maintain happiness among society. Captain Beatty explains the history of firemen to Montag, speaking of their society’s view of equality. “We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind.” (Bradbury, page 58) Captain Beatty is hinting that books encourage people to question authority and think about why things are done the way they are

Although books may seem important to educate people about what kind of society they are living in, the government in Fahrenheit 451 controls the information of what the public views by destroying books in order to maintain their power.

In Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, censorship plays a significant role in the dystopian society. The novel illustrates what it would be like if the government had full control of what society reads, watches, or communicates. According to Bradbury, this perpetuates ignorance because society blindly obeys the government. Most people in the novel are unaware of their unhappiness with society, including Mildred, Guy Montag’s wife, who almost commits suicide by mistakenly taking an entire bottle of sleeping pills. Censorship has a great effect on the personalities and knowledge of the people in the society. The society is essentially “trapped” in a toxic world filled with ignorance (Mogen 105). The government feels by controlling all forms of media, society should be cooperative and happy; however, once citizens become distracted by the consequences of owning and reading books, unhappiness and chaos occur. Reading books promotes knowledge, which encourages people to think, but because of censorship, the society has become ignorant.

Throughout the decades, certain restrictions have been shown in various forms from newspapers to television to social media. In America today, it serves as a positive outcome due to it protecting children from watching certain shows that they are too young to see. However, there are negative effects of censorship still prevalent in some parts of the world today. Censorship can block new and varied beliefs and ideas, which hides information from the public. Consequently, this is seen in the book Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury. In the dystopian society, many of the citizens daily routine consists of the act of burning books, watching manipulative “parlor families” on television, and not being accepted for doing things out of the norm. The residents in the story are limited to only juvenile thinking and actions which makes the society less diverse and knowledgeable. Even though restrictions can be effective at times, the author expresses the sense of censorship and how it is a bad influence by revealing certain characters that are affected by the restrictive society.

Don't think, Don't read, hide all your wants and desires because in this society freedom does not matter. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, freedom is in the hands of the government, whatever they say goes or else you die. In this futuristic dystopian society, the novel Fahrenheit 451 portrays the government as power-hungry and manipulative, who controls the people from gaining knowledge through fear, intimidation, and technology. Bradbury wrote this novel as a protest against government censorship. In the government used many methods to control the people such as the mechanical hounds, burning books, and brainwashing through the use of technology. With these cruel strategies, the people cannot help but submit to the government’s orders.​

In the book Fahrenheit 451 the theme is a society/world that revolves around being basically brain washed or programmed because of the lack of people not thinking for themselves concerning the loss of knowledge, and imagination from books that don't exist to them. In such stories as the Kurt Vonnegut's "You have insulted me letter" also involving censorship to better society from vulgarity and from certain aspects of life that could be seen as disruptive to day to day society which leads to censorship of language and books. Both stories deal with censorship and by that society is destructed in a certain way by the loss of knowledge from books.

“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.” (Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart). This quote is showing exactly what the government in the dystopia of Fahrenheit 451 is doing wrong to the society. Written by Ray Bradbury in 1953, this book is set in the 24th century, where the population is controlled and books are illegal. The protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman in charge of burning any book that is found. The problem with the society, which relates to the quote above, is that the government has used censorship of knowledge and ideas to control the people; they did this in three major ways:

In Fahrenheit 451, the people living in the book are living in a world where everything they do is censored. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, censorship is the suppression or prohibition of any books, films, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable or a threat to security or society. The people living in the world that the novel takes place in are censored to books. Not just certain ones, but every single book that exists. Nobody remembers an era when people were allowed to read books because the people living in the book disapprove of it. When there are books, the firemen come and burn them all, because the people believe that the books are a threat to their society. Censorship is all about deciding what people

Totalitarianism is the most radical denial of freedom. It describes a society with no rights and no control over one’s own thoughts or actions. According to the Online Oxford Dictionaries, totalitarianism is, “a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state” (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com). In other words, totalitarianism is a society controlled by a government, composed of a limited amount of people, with complete control over the population. Throughout Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury entails of a society controlled by a totalitarian government, providing insight on how its mechanics function. Bradbury, a renowned writer especially for his visions of the future expressed

The main theme expressed in these novels is mass censorship on society. The authority figures shape society to believe what they want society to believe. In 1984, a group called “the party” exterminates and modifies any literature or documentations of history to get society to think what the party wants them to think. The party uses monitoring screens in homes and “thoughtpolice” to monitor citizens actions and thoughts. In Fahrenheit 451, the authority does not modify any literature or documentation. The authority chooses to exterminate any form of literature and documentation. Therefore, the society has no knowledge about history and what goes on in the world. This censors the thoughts of society and does not allow citizens to speak freely and express their thoughts about anything.

The ideals of the educated few versus the ideals of an uneducated majority , and how they majority is oppressed in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. In a society where books are made illegal the majority of people are uneducated, and technology has replaced common knowledge. Owning books is a crime in this society, and all books are burned by firemen when they are discovered, preventing a vast majority of past knowledge from being carried into the future. The society greatly resembles a Marxist community, with the government heavily censoring what the public sees, and destroying everything the government does not want

In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the characters live in a world where books are banned and burned, and individual thought is disputed. This reality all stems from society’s belief that if something is offensive, controversial, or makes someone uncomfortable, then it is bad for society. This ideology leads to the banning of all books, the people living very shallow lives, and an easily controllable and ignorant population.